Ontario Celebrates Opening of New Long-Term Care Home in Mitchell
Modernized West Perth Village brings 128 much-needed long-term care beds to the province
The Voice of Canada — The Ontario government, along with Ritz Lutheran Villa, is celebrating the opening of a modernized, new long-term care home, West Perth Village, which is bringing 128 much-needed beds to the municipality of Mitchell. This is part of the Ontario government’s commitment to build more than 58,000 new and upgraded long-term care beds across the province.
“Congratulations to the Ritz Lutheran Villa team as we celebrate the opening of an upgraded long-term care home for Perth County. Our government is fixing long-term care and ensuring we build homes for seniors in the communities they helped build,” said Stan Cho, Minister of Long-Term Care. “This new home is a significant milestone for Mitchell — West Perth Village means 128 residents now have a new, modern and comfortable place to call home.”
Construction of the new 128-bed West Perth Village home began in November 2020, and replaces the existing 83-bed Ritz Lutheran Villa and 45-bed Mitchell Nursing Home, both in Mitchell. The new building features design improvements, including dining rooms with large windows and direct access to the courtyard and balconies, interconnected lounges and activity rooms, and air conditioning throughout the home. The design is centred around four ‘resident home areas’, each of which creates a more intimate and familiar living space for up to 32 residents, with dining and activity areas, lounges and bedrooms.
The first phase of construction was completed in March 2023 when the new home welcomed 128 residents. The second phase of construction began in March 2023, a renovation of the existing home to expand the kitchen, administrative and common areas that was completed in September 2023.
West Perth Village is a not-for-profit home and is part of a campus of care, which helps integrate the long-term care home into the broader health care system and ensures residents can conveniently connect to the care they need.
The government is fixing long-term care to ensure Ontario’s seniors get the quality of care and quality of life they need and deserve, both now and in the future. The plan is built on four pillars: staffing and care; quality and enforcement; building modern, safe and comfortable homes; and connecting seniors with faster, more convenient access to the services they need.
Quick Facts
As a result of the government’s supplemental increase to the construction funding subsidy, which was designed to stimulate the start of construction for more long-term care homes across Ontario, 67 projects were approved to start construction between April 1, 2022 and August 31, 2023. This means 11,199 new and upgraded beds are now being built to modern design standards across the province.
As part of its plan to fix long-term care and address sector waitlists, the government is building more than 30,000 net new long-term care beds in Ontario by 2028 and upgrading more than 28,000 older beds to modern design standards.
Building more modern, safe and comfortable homes for our seniors is part of the Government of Ontario’s Fixing Long-Term Care Act, 2021.
The province is taking innovative steps to get long-term care homes built, including modernizing its funding model, selling unused lands with the requirement that long-term care homes be built on portions of the properties, and leveraging hospital-owned land to build urgently needed homes in large urban areas.
As of April 2023, more than 40,000 people were on the waitlist to access a long-term care bed in Ontario. The median wait time is 123 days for applicants to be placed in long-term care.
Quotes
“On behalf of the Board of Directors, I would like to thank the Ministry of Long-Term Care, our project partners and the surrounding community for the support and generous donations that made the completion of this project possible. Our residents moved into their beautiful new home in March 2023, with the remaining project completion finishing just several weeks ago. The local community has been very supportive of the project from beginning to end and we thank everyone again for their contributions.”– Leanne Davidson, Chief Executive Officer, Ritz Lutheran Villa/West Perth Village
