Personal care home opens

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The old Balcarres Union Hospital has a new lease on life.

The former hospital, now converted to a personal care home, welcomed its first resident in March.

The moving-in day caps a year of renovations to the Balcarres Personal Care Home and new economic opportunity, and responsibility, for the File Hills Agency, the home's owners.

For the chief administrator, Noella McKay, it was a bit of a homecoming, though the former Balcarres Union Hospital looked a little different from the last time she saw the facility. McKay worked as a nurse in the hospital in the 1980s.

"They've done a lot of work to make this a good personal care home," she said.

A personal care home is a residence in which people with medical problems can live in a dormitory-like setting. This setting brings them closer to medical care, pharmacists and other specialized needs providers without requiring the full acute or long-term care services provided in higher levels of care.

The former Balcarres Union Hospital came up for sale in September 1999, when the building and Parkland Lodge were replaced with the Balcarres Integrated Care Centre.

However, McKay explained, the community of Balcarres felt there was a need for a personal care home in the town.

"It was not just the File Hills Agency, but also the Touchwood Qu'Appelle Health District and the Town of Balcarres who saw a great need for a facility like this," McKay said.

"They wanted a care home for not just First Nations but also for non-First Nations people in the district."

The File Hills Agencies purchased the building from the Touchwood Qu'Appelle Health District later that year, and undertook about $2 million worth of renovations, which were completed last January.

"They did away with the lab and x-ray, the emergency rooms, the nursing station and the recovery room," she said. "All that has been changed to private rooms and double rooms."

The new personal care home offers 26 beds for residents, with four rooms available for couples.

The facility provides Level 2 and Level 3 care for its residents.

Level 2 provides care for those capable of living an active lifestyle but who need care with such things as foot care, personal hygiene and prescription drug taking.

Level 3 care provides more assistance for residents in areas such as bathing and personal grooming.

At full capacity, 18 people will be working at the home. Training courses in such areas as first aid, safe food handling CPR and special aide care were provided for many members of the File Hills bands in order to be eligible to work at the facility.