Baptist Housing has decided to reconfigure the space at the proposed new Inglewood Care Centre to accommodate 120 long term care (LTC) suites.
Under an updated proposal to be considered soon by the District of West Vancouver, the current 230 long term care suites at the outdated Inglewood residence will eventually expand to 360 in total.
Last year’s closure of 75 West Van Care Centre beds and 205 Capilano Care Centre beds leaves Inglewood as the last government funded long term care community in West Vancouver, Baptist Housing noted.
“Many have the impression that West Van residents have the means to afford any number of housing options, but in reality, there just isn’t enough housing for our growing seniors’ population,” said Marc Kinna, president and CEO, Baptist Housing. “We have heard loud and clear that people are concerned there will not be enough long term care space available in West Van in the long term. So, with our recently completed reconfiguration of one of the new buildings in our plan, we will be able to make it home to 120 LTC additional suites.”
The 230 new LTC suites will be built in the first two new buildings for the residents who currently live in the Inglewood Care Centre that will be replaced.
In phase 2, as many as 120 more LTC suites will be built in the third building of the project as Phase Two begins. In the original plan, the third building was to have been a mix of housing types but will now have long term care suites exclusively.
Inglewood will be the first development in Canada with pandemic-informed Infection Control and Prevention principles incorporated into the design. All LTC units will be configured in “households of 12” to limit interactions between large groups of residents during a flu or other viral outbreaks.
The addition is needed with our current population, but is it enough?
Probably not.
WE continue to build market housing and bring more people to the North Shore
when we are experiencing closures of vital family physician offices. Many of these doctors are
cutting back hours to 3 days a week or closing all together and moving away from the North Shore.
Lifestyle congestion on the north shore has been sighted in many cases as the reason.
The current consequence is we are left with no available doctors. This is a major lifestyle reality
which should not be happening.
In the 21st century you would think all levels of government would put manageability of the health care
system a priority before expanding further into more market housing.
Louise Nagle