One door closes, Pleasant Manor opens another for local seniors

Today, Wednesday Dec. 18, one of Niagara-on-the-Lake’s three long-term care homes is closing its doors. Any remaining residents at Upper Canada Lodge have moved to the new Gilmore Lodge in Fort Erie — both homes are owned by Niagara Region, and the licences for 80 beds in UCL officially transfer to Gilmore Lodge.

However, as the saying goes, when one door closes, another door opens, and fortunately for some of those local residents at Upper Canada Lodge, another door opened for them much closer to home than Fort Erie.

Pleasant Manor’s Heritage Place in Virgil was able to offer five of its 41 long-term care beds to UCL residents, despite having a waiting list of about 300 people.

And although it’s a little far off, it will be able to provide even more beds to those requiring long-term care by next fall, explained CEO Tim Siemens on a recent tour of a three-storey long-term care home under construction at its Virgil location, planned to open in the fall of 2025.

It will have 160 beds, and of those beds, 119 will be new, for those who have applied for long-term care and are on a waiting list, while 41 will be for residents in Pleasant Manor’s existing long-term care home, Heritage Place, allowing them a much-updated room and all the amenities that will come with the new home.

But first a little history is necessary, as Siemens explained: Pleasant Manor operates under the private, not-for-profit umbrella of Radiant Care, which also includes Tabor Manor in St. Catharines. They are both faith-based homes, built by the Mennonite community to serve the needs of seniors within their community, but also beyond — faith is only one component that is considered when offering available accommodations to those who have applied to either home.

But most important for applicants and family members to understand is that in Ontario, those decisions are not made by the long-term care home itself.

How beds are allocated is decided by the provincial Ontario Health atHome organization, according to regulations set out by the province, as is the fee schedule, whether the homes are private or publicly owned.

“When Pleasant Manor releases a bed, Ontario Health atHome, makes the connection,” based on who has applied and what kind of room they’re looking for and what the facility has to offer, said Siemens.

That explains why NOTL resident Andrew Henwood was so grateful to learn his wife Gayle, who had lived in Upper Canada Lodge for several years, was being offered a room in the Virgil home, despite having been told there was about the extensive waiting list. He was desperately afraid she would end up in Fort Erie, which would have been very difficult for him to get to from his Old Town home.

She was moved to Virgil in June, and he loves the room she is in now — it’s larger and nicer than what she had in UCL, and he’s able to continue his daily schedule of visits.

During a recent tour of the new Gilmore Lodge, The Local learned of a Fort Erie resident living in UCL would be  moving to the new home in Fort Erie, much closer to his family.

That’s not surprising, said Siemens — who surmised that when families fill out applications with their preferences listed, particularly in the case of those in a long-term care home with a hard closing date, they would move to the top of the list at their preferred location.

When the new Virgil building is near completion, Ontario Health atHome will reach out to those on the Pleasant Manor waiting list. Successful applications will be based on several factors, and moving in will be paced out over a number of weeks, “to give residents and their families time to acclimate,” he said.

Tabor Manor and Pleasant Manor, the two Radiant Care facilities, are popular in part because both offer a variety of housing options, including apartments built for independent or assisted living with support services, life-lease apartments and townhouses, as well as long-term care.

“We want to support people in living up to their potential as long as possible,” said Siemens, and the variety of on-site care options makes it possible for them to do so.

While there are many advantages to the new long-term care building, chiefly the increased number of beds to offer to those waiting for long-term care accommodations, one stands out as a benefit to the entire Pleasant Manor complex.

The entrance to the new building, accessed by Pleasant Lane, as Siemens points out at the start of the tour, is important for more than one reason. It will be considered the front of the entire complex, and in addition to those headed to the long-term care home, it will become the main door to all of Pleasant Manor, from a parking lot that will be the main parking area also for the entire facility, with enough space for staff and visitors.

That’s a lot of parking, with 250 new employees to be hired: registered nurses, registered practical nurses, practical support workers, dieticians, and then all those needed to staff the laundry rooms, and kitchens, and more.

As well, every building on the 14-acre site, including apartments, townhouses and the main buildings, will be connected by covered hallways to the new building, accessible without having to go outdoors, said Siemens.

That fulfills an important Radiant Care goal, he explains, in the ease it offers all residents living on the site, independently or with some level of care. He references in particular the spouses of those in long-term care who want to be close to their loved one, and choose one of Pleasant Manor’s other options as their home.

That’s a huge part of the level of care Siemens is so proud of providing, taking into account all that is done for their residents that is far and above what the province mandates. “This is driven by our passion and core values.”

That is also shown in the design of the rooms, and the amenities each area of the new home will offer — there standards set out by the province, and then there are the standards Radiant Care offers, said Siemens.

As provincially mandated, each area of the long-term care facility must be limited to 32 beds, and each of those in the new building will be split into two pods of 16.

“Dividing them into two makes them seem much more intimate,” says Siemens. “Some of the larger residences can feel more like cities.”

There will be 96 private rooms, and 64 are semi-private, but their design offers residents much more privacy than existing homes do, which have only a curtain dividing the beds. Each of those semi-private rooms will have hard walls separating the bedroom areas, with a shared vestibule and washroom, Siemens points out, proud of the distinction and the benefit to their residents.

And as he moves to the windows, some of them already installed, many of them in amenity areas are floor-to-ceiling. He points out the view in each direction, where residents will see peach orchards from one side of the building, and from the other side, peach orchards and grapevines — just what they may have seen from their homes.

Residents moving into the new home will be given photos of the views from each side, and from each floor — each will have a different perspective, and future residents will have the choice.

“People like to know which side of the building they’re going to be on, and what’s outside their window. It gives them something to look forward to, and it will feel like their room when they move in,” he said — he’s gone through this process before, when Tabor Manor opened its new building.

There are patios on every floor, for residents in each home area, and an outdoor recreational courtyard for all residents on the main floor. And all the work areas, such as the kitchens and laundry facilities, are planned to be out-of-sight of residents to help create the home-like atmosphere — even the movement of food or laundry from floor to floor will be in elevators built and located with that purpose in mind.

Siemens takes some time to explain the pay scale — it would seem from a two-hour tour that no expense is being spared in this new building that will accommodate seniors from all backgrounds. Rates are mandated by the province, he said, whether the home is private for-profit, private not-for-profit, or owned by the municipality, and every resident must pay a set amount toward their room. But there is a scale for those who can’t afford to pay the full rate, he said, based on what they can pay.

The biggest difference, he said, is that for-profit private homes have a goal of returns for the share-holders who have invested in them, while “we’re a charity.”

In broad terms, that allows them to spend less on some expenses, and more on others, according to what is best for residents, he explains, not share-holders.