Ontario's next fast-tracked long-term care home set to open as province hopes to shorten wait list

Assembling welcome baskets and some wallpapering is all that needs to be done before the second long-term care home developed under Ontario's new accelerated build program opens its doors.

Humber Meadows Long-Term Care Home in North York is expecting its first resident in the next week or so, and anticipates filling all 320 beds in the near future.

"These beds won't sit idle. There won't be a time that I can foresee that we will have a bed that we put into abeyance because we aren't able to fill it," said Sadie Friesner, executive director of the home.

That's in part because as of February 2023, more than 39,000 people were on the wait list to access a long-term care bed in Ontario.

In response to the long list, the Ontario government launched a pilot project in July 2020 that would build on hospital-owned land and accelerate construction to get shovels in the ground quickly.

At the time, the government had partnered with Trillium Health Partners in Mississauga, Humber River Hospital in Toronto and Lakeridge Health in Ajax to add up to 1,272 net new beds at four new long-term care homes in the Greater Toronto Area.

Ground was broken at Humber Meadows in December of 2020 but was slowed due to having to switch from modular construction, meaning built in parts remotely, to a conventional build, meaning building on site. Pandemic-related challenges didn't help either.

"There were a number of times we had to switch what our supplier recommended or the items we wanted to purchase because there wasn't the availability of the sheer volume we needed," Friesner said.

'We hope to be a benchmark'

Now near-ready, Humber Meadows will have a bariatric care program and in-house dialysis. A salon will operate five days a week. There's a television room, activity room and conference room on every floor. As well, there's a spiritual space.

In a news release, the province said the home will offer tailored services to residents from the Italian community, including receiving service in their own language, traditional food choices, cultural activities and spiritual services. Italians make up a large portion of the wait list in the area.

There are no shared bedrooms and each floor has access to outdoor space.

There is a thermostat in every resident's room allowing them to manually control the temperature within a certain range.

Friesner is also taking pride in the smaller details, however.

Every floor is a different colour and staff members will wear a corresponding coloured uniform to help residents identify them.

Each floor is also named after wildlife found in a meadow to honour the home's name and the grounds it was built on.

"We hope to be a benchmark because we are newer, we are built to the new design standards and we are able to offer different things that other homes don't have," Friesner said.

'Surprised' by response to job postings

She also believes the standard at Humber Meadows is why it's seen so many applicants.

She said the home is now fully staffed with about 270 employees, including personal support workers and nurses, with more employees starting in June.

"We were quite surprised by the response to our posting."

Construction at Lakeridge Gardens in Ajax, Ontario's first accelerated build project, was completed in early 2022, the Ministry of Long-Term Care said. Construction at Wellbrooke Place, the third project in Mississauga is expected to be completed later this year.

The province says it's on track to build 30,000 new long-term care beds in the province by 2028 and is redeveloping older beds to modern design standards.