The Grande Prairie Care Centre (Photo: Shaun Penner / EverythingGP)

By Shaun Penner

Affordable Supportive Living Initiative

Grande Prairie identified as community “most in need” of new continuing care spaces

Sep 1, 2020 | 3:02 PM

The City of Grande Prairie has been identified as a community “most in need” of more continuing care spaces by the Alberta government.

A detailed analysis by Alberta Health Services has identified the Swan City as one of 31 priority communities where the government is seeking proposals from new and existing continuing care operators to help expand publicly funded spaces, without additional capital funding.

The initiative, announced by Premier Jason Kenney on Tuesday morning, is meant to build on the Affordable Supportive Living Initiative (ASLI).

“Alberta seniors are cherished members of our communities. To meet their needs, we’re developing new continuing care spaces in priority communities across Alberta and continuing our government’s platform commitment to reinstate the Alberta Supportive Living Initiative,” said Kenney.

“Through this work, hundreds of Alberta seniors will have better access to high-quality continuing care close to family and friends – quickly and cost-effectively.”

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Kenney says that the province and AHS have identified plenty of “under utilized space” at various care facilities across the province, which could now be turned into continuing care space, under contract with AHS.

“This will allow, for example, the operator of a supportive living facility to develop new, publicly funded continuing care beds, in a currently under utilized building. This will speed the addition of capacity to the continuing care system, without waiting years to construct a new building.”

Grande Prairie, along with High Level/Fort Vermilion, were the communities in Northwestern Alberta identified as most in need by the province under this program. Interested operators are asked to submit proposals through an expression of interest process if they have capacity to operate new continuing care spaces.

The province says this expansion will also help more seniors receive continuing care closer to home.

“Every Albertan wants to age in grace and dignity, close to family and friends,” said Jennifer McCue, Board Chair of the Alberta Continuing Care Association. “Targeting priority communities means that more Albertans will have quicker access to continuing care closer to home.”

The province says this is the first step in a larger plan to increase continuing care spaces. It says Budget 2020 includes $164 million over three years through this initiative.

As of March, there were 27,518 continuing care spaces in the province. 103 facilities are operated by AHS, 126 are privately-run and 124 are managed by non-profits.

Currently, around 400 Albertans are waiting in acute care for continuing care spaces to become available, with the average wait time being 54 days in 2019-20.