Home, sweet home, at Southbridge Cornwall long-term care facility
It was a special day for residents, staff and others at a long-term care facility in Cornwall.
It was opening day, for the Southbridge Cornwall Long-term Care Home on Nick Kaneb Drive, as 53 residents of Parisien Manor started moving in Wednesday morning.
They were celebrated by staff members upon arrival at the expansive new location, getting the red-carpet treatment as they entered the building for the first time.
Dignitaries arrived too, and it was feeling like home, sweet home, for everyone in attendance.
“It’s a very exciting day,” said Andrew Lauzon, Southbridge Cornwall executive director. “Everybody is moving, and we’ll be starting new admissions right after.”
There’s plenty of room. The three-storey building on a 3.2-hectare (eight-acre) site beside Bridgewood Public School and just north of Holy Cross Boulevard has 160 beds in what’s overall 10,333 square metres (108,000 square feet) of space.
In tours that were led by Lauzon, he showed guests a first-floor dining area, some of the spacious rooms, a worship space, the exercise area, and so many other features that are considered state-of-the-art for the LTC sector.
There are five home areas in all, each with 32 residents and with a dining area. In total, Southbridge Cornwall will have approximately 160 staff members.
Lauzon told reporters Parisien Manor, which opened in 1969 and is owned by Southbridge, would cease operating when the last resident moved across town on Wednesday afternoon.
“It’s had its day,” Lauzon said. “(The new building) is needed, it’s welcomed.”
Among those taking a tour was Cornwall Mayor Justin Towndale, who like so many in Cornwall were able to keep tabs on the progress of construction over many months, the facility easily visible from the well-travelled boulevard.
But seeing the inside, finished product is a completely different experience.
“I’m blown away,” Towndale said while taking questions from reporters during a briefing along with Paul Calandra, the Ontario Minister of Long-term Care. “The engineering in the building is amazing. The furniture, the floors, the layout. It’s so intelligently done. The hallways don’t end, there are no cul-de-sacs, there’s always another way to go. . . the rooms are large – everything is so well thought out.
“It shows you how far we’ve come in building (LTC facilities). This is so impressive, and it’s great how comfortable the residents are going to be here.”
The mayor said the community is grateful for what is a massive investment in Cornwall.
The Ontario government said it’s part of its $6.4-billion commitment to build more than 58,000 new and upgraded long-term care beds across the province by 2028.
Construction of Southbridge Cornwall began in December of 2020.
In addition to Southbridge Cornwall, Ontario is supporting another seven projects in the city of Cornwall and the United Counties of SDG, including the development of LTC homes in Long Sault, Maxville, Winchester, Alexandria, and Lancaster. Across the region, the eight projects will provide 359 new and 697 upgraded long-term care beds, for a total of 1,056 beds built to modern design standards.
“Thank you to Minister Calandra and his team for their hard work and commitment to fixing Ontario’s long-term care system,” said Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry MPP Nolan Quinn. “The opening of Southbridge Cornwall represents a significant and much-needed investment in long-term care in our community.”