Residents of North Queens will soon have a new long-term care home to call their own.
Kim Masland, Minister of Public Works and MLA for Queens, on behalf of Seniors and Long-Term Care Minister Barbara Adams, made the announcement Tuesday November 28.
People living in and around Caledonia, will have access to a new, modern long-term care facility with the replacement of the North Queens Nursing Home.
The new North Queens Nursing Home is expected to replace the existing home when it opens in 2032.
The new facility will provide care for close to 50 seniors with single rooms, each with its own private washroom.
In a statement Masland says eventually everyone needs some help and the new home will be a resource for families when they need it.
“At some point, almost of us will have a loved one in need of long-term care,” said Minister Masland. “We are planning today to ensure that the appropriate facilities are in place so that everyone we care about can have a safe and welcoming place to receive the care they need, when they need it.”
The North Queens Nursing Home replacement is part of the recent addition of 2,200 rooms to the Province’s long-term care infrastructure plan.The provincial government is promising more announcements about locations of new and replacement rooms are coming in the next few weeks.
Those announcements can’t come too soon. As of Nov 15, there were just over 1,700 people waiting at home for placement in long-term care.
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The proposed site for the new library at Queens Place lies at the end of the driveway beside the sledding hill. Photo Ed Halverson
Region of Queens Council has cancelled the construction of a new library near Queens Place.
In a recorded 5-3 vote, Councillors Amirault, Charlton, Fancy, Gidney and Muise voted not to build the library at that location, while Mayor Norman and Councillors Brown and Hawkes voted to go ahead.
In August 2022 council agreed to sell the land at Queens Crossing (the name of the site containing Queens Place, the Best Western Hotel, the skatepark, the planned long-term care home and the proposed library site) to the Queens Care Society for $2 per square foot.
The 479,000 square feet of land would bring in roughly $960,000, which is about what public works staff estimate it would cost to build a road, sidewalks and water infrastructure out to the end of the cul-de-sac to accommodate the library and long-term care home.
Historically, council has reinvested any proceeds from the sale of land on that site back into infrastructure at Queens Crossing.
Charlton says she supports the construction of a new long-term care home, but council was never asked if they wanted to spend that money and since it isn’t a policy, this council is not bound by the decisions of previous councils.
“We did not discuss a road extension when we agreed to sell the land,” said Charlton. “We were selling the land because it was already serviced for water and sewer to the point where it was required.”
Mayor Darlene Norman says if the municipality doesn’t cover the cost of extending these services it will need to come from the Queens Care Society’s construction budget.
“The whole idea that we would not show our support for this amazing facility is beyond comprehensible to me,” said Norman.
Councillor Vicki Amirault chairs the library site selection committee and voted against the committee’s recommendation.
The committee was tasked by council with finding the best location to build a new library.
Councillor Amirault was contacted to provide a comment for this story but did not reply before publication.
Council is now looking at options to move the library closer to the Queens Place Emera Centre.
They have requested costed studies for two different library concepts.
One will determine the price of a stand-alone library beside Queens Place; the other would examine building an extension on the Centre.
CAO Chris McNeill told council he was warned by the project manager an extension would be more costly.
McNeill says any extension on Queens Place would have to look at the existing capacity of the building to handle additional demands on electricity, heating and water supply among other issues.
McNeill also informed council the two studies could cost in the range of $200,000.
In the meantime, council is aware of the precarious situation the Thomas H Raddall Library finds itself.
In addition to infrastructure issues the building is currently up for sale.
Council is suggesting the library find alternative locations where they could relocate temporarily until a new permanent location can be built.
Future site of Queens long-term care facility. Photo Ed Halverson
The executive director of Queens Manor says while people may not see shovels in the ground there’s lots of work going on behind the scenes in preparation to build the new long-term care home in Queens.
Andrew MacVicar says the design team of architects and engineers are meeting regularly with staff and frontline workers to ensure the new facility feels like home to the people living there.
The new home will have 112 bed capacity divided into groupings of 12 to 16 residents called resident neighborhoods.
MacVicar says placing residents together in smaller numbers allow them to get to know each other just as they do in any other neighbourhood.
He says whenever a new design idea is brought forward it is measured against a very simple standard.
“It’s a resident centred philosophy so everything we do in our design meetings, the questions we’re asking are: how does this benefit our residents, how does this create a homelike environment and then again, the very next question is how does it benefit our staff and how does it allow our staff to be the best they can be?” said MacVicar. “Because if the staff aren’t at their best that is a direct impact on resident care.”
The team behind the development have traveled to three other long term care homes across Nova Scotia which already have some of the design elements they’re considering in place.
MacVicar says some of the design elements they plan to incorporate from these conversations include an open kitchen so residents and staff can connect with each other as you would at home.
Staff also suggested allowing more sunlight into the building so the home doesn’t feel closed off.
MacVicar says one of the most important suggestions was to place the new facility in the heart of the community which is how the decision was made to build at Queens Place.
“Isolating seniors is not a good idea. And you want your seniors to look out their window and see the community that they lived in that they still live in,” said MacVicar. “They want to see people that they know going to hockey games and they want to see parents with their kids at the skate park and they want to see, believe it or not, they want to see the trucks on the 103. They want to see cars, they want to see movement, they want to see action.”
Queens’ new long-term care home is scheduled to open in early 2026.
MacVicar understands there is a lot of anticipation from the community around the new building and the planning team is keen to give everyone a look once the design plans are finalized.
“We’re excited to share. We’re really excited about this project; we’re really excited about the design. We can’t wait to open it; we want to share it with the community.”
MacVicar hopes people will begin to see some activity on the site later this year.
