Construction starts on highly anticipated long-term care beds

Construction is underway on the redevelopment of the IOOF Seniors home in Barrie that will add 130 modern long-term care beds to the community.

Construction has begun on bringing much-needed long-term care beds to Barrie.

The roar of construction vehicles working on a new redevelopment and addition at the IOOF seniors home in Barrie can be heard from way down the street. Workers are busy tearing down and preparing for the new build that will create new and much-needed long-term care beds.

“Our government is improving long term care by building more homes, hiring more staff and making historic investments to protect families and their loved ones,” says Natalia Kusendova-Bashta, minister of long-term care.

The redeveloped site will include an addition to the existing building. The work will be done in two phases and is expected to be complete by 2029. Shortages of long-term care beds not only locally but across the province have resulted in long waitlists, in some cases, people forced to wait years for a bed.

“If you look at the number of people waiting to get into long-term care, for example, in our facility here, we have about 600 on our waiting list. So this is just a drop in the bucket, but at least it’s a start,” says Garry Hopkins, CEO of IOOF Barrie.

Barrie Mayor Alex Nuttall was on hand at the official announcement today.

“The city has quadrupled in size. We need to quadruple the number of beds in our community as well. So there’s a ton of work to do to get there. We need families from Barrie to be able to age in Barrie in a way that keeps that connection with everyone in their family and friend group,” says Nuttall.

There are 650 long-term care homes in Ontario. The province says there are currently 154 projects underway at those homes as town and cities try to keep up with increasing demand. Once this $48 million project is complete, there will be 64 new and 66 upgraded long-term care beds in the long-term care home, bringing the total number of beds at the facility to 226.