THUNDER BAY – The province is more than doubling funding to St. Joseph’s Care Group, part of the Conservative government’s efforts to reduce gridlock at Thunder Bay hospitals.
MP Kevin Holland on Thursday announced Ontario will spend $4.6 million in the 2023-24 fiscal budget - with nearly half of the money, totalling $2.2 million, being used to help fund Willow Place.
Willow Place is a 32-bed transitional care unit that keeps patients out of acute care while they wait for the next stop on their medical journey.
Between October 2022 and December 2023, 113 clients were admitted to the unit, with 79 of them successfully moving back into their community.
The province is also spending $917,080 for senior supportive housing at St. Joseph’s Care Group, $190,000 on the North West Regional Rehabilitative Care Program, $647,000 for frailty identification and transition in partnership with Thunder Bay Regional, $630,000 for Behavioural Supports Ontario, and $40,000 for a bed-sitter program at PR Cook apartments.
The money will have a huge impact, said St. Joseph’s Care Group president and CEO Janine Black, speaking at Hogarth Riverview Manor, an assisted living facility in Thunder Bay run by her organization.
“What this does for the clients of St. Joseph’s Care Group, and really for people across the city and the region, is it first of all helps people stay at home and live at home independently as long as possible. It also helps people avoid being admitted to acute care if they don’t need to be,” Black said.
“And finally, it helps people to get back home once they’ve received the therapy they need and helps them to be able to function in their homes longer.”
Black said without the money, many of the patients would be stuck in acute care at a facility like Thunder Bay Regional or St. Joseph’s Hospital, taking up a bed that another patient might need.
“That’s not the right place for them to be for getting mobile, getting recreation, getting some of the activities that would help them get back into the communities. What it might mean is they (might) just become more frail. They become less able to function once they go home,” Black said.
Holland said he’s been working since he was elected to help his Queen’s Park colleagues recognize the realities of health care in Thunder Bay and Northwestern Ontario.
It was clear something had to be done to help patients who don’t need to be there out of acute care beds, and doubling the spending will help, he said.
“We’re finding, and our caregivers are saying, they’ve tried, and (patients) do better in those type of settings,” Holland said.
“It’s anticipated this funding is going to reduce the demands on the acute beds, free up those acute care beds at the hospitals so the people who require that acute care have a space to go.”
PR Cook Apartments has 181 units and the Northwest Regional Rehabilitative Care program conducted more than 1,200 outreach service visits between April 2023 and December 2023.
The money is part of $131 million in one-time funding provided by the province to reduce stress on alternative level of care service across Ontario.
When asked, Holland said he expected funding will continue beyond this year, though he could not say if it would be at the same level.
