Toronto’s North York General Hospital will see the addition of a new 384-bed long-term care home by 2026, the Ontario government said Friday.
According to a release, the hospital is proposing a new "state of the art" facility that would integrate into the broader health-care system and offer specialized behavioural support and convalescent care.
The plan would see the province upgrade 160 beds which are currently part of a long-term care home within the hospital’s Seniors Health Centre and add 192 new beds. The hospital will fund the addition of 32 upgraded beds that will be transferred from the existing home to the new one.
“Our government has a plan to fix long-term care and a key part of that plan is building modern, safe, and comfortable homes for our seniors,” Minister of Long-Term Care Paul Calandra said in a statement Friday.
The hospital said that it is "thrilled" about the plan and that it represents one of the largest long-term care projects in Toronto.
Bert Clark, chair of North York General Hospital’s board of governors, called the move a “forward-thinking investment in seniors’ health.”
“NYGH’s new, leading-edge long-term care home will be one of the largest in Toronto and designed based on learning from the COVID-19 crisis,” he said in a statement. “Our goal is to create an environment that any of us would want our parents and loved ones to live in should they need this level of support.”
Shovels are expected to go into the ground by spring 2024, with completion slated for summer 2026.
The home will be licensed to and operated by the hospital.
The announcement comes a day after Health Minister Christine Elliott visited North York General to announce an additional $3 million to modernize the hospital, with funding for a new emergency room, upgraded beds and more operating room space.
Calandra’s office could not immediately provide a cost estimate for the new home.
The government says the new long-term care home attached to the hospital is part of a provincial commitment to add more than 30,000 net new beds and 28,000 upgraded long-term care beds across the province by 2028 at a cost of $6.4 billion.
Two weeks ago the province announced that it would build three new long-term care homes in Markham and Whitchurch-Stouffville, adding 800 new LTC beds.
Critics of Ontario’s long-term care home system have called for a move away from for-profit homes, citing a marked difference in outcomes at not-for-profit and for-profit homes during the COVID-19 pandemic.
