The Ontario government is building 192 new long-term care (LTC) beds at Schlegel Villages Ajax, a new long-term care home in Durham Region.
This is part of the government’s $6.4 billion commitment to build more than 30,000 net new beds by 2028 and about 28,000 upgraded long-term care beds across the province, said a media statement.
Welcoming the announcement, the Town of Ajax said the approval will also advance the Grandview Children’s Centre project on the connected lands.
“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,” said Rod Phillips, MPP for Ajax and Minister of Long-Term Care. “When Schlegel Villages Ajax is completed it will be a place for 192 seniors in the community to call home, near their family and friends.”
Schlegel Villages Ajax will be part of a campus of care, which helps integrate the home into the broader health care system and ensures residents have access to the care they need. Construction is expected to start by Spring 2023.
There are 636 new and 100 upgraded long-term care beds under construction or in development in Ajax. The 192 new beds allocated to Schlegel Villages Ajax are in addition to 320 new beds at a new home being built at Lakeridge Health’s Ajax Pickering Hospital, and 124 new and 100 upgraded beds under construction at Chartwell Ballycliffe Long-Term Care Residence.
The government has a plan to fix long-term care and to ensure Ontario’s seniors get the quality of care and quality of life they need and deserve both now and in the future. The plan is built on three pillars: staffing and care; accountability, enforcement, and transparency; and building modern, safe, comfortable homes for seniors.
Quick Facts
- Building new long-term care homes and upgrading existing older homes to modern standards is part of the Government of Ontario’s Long-Term Care Modernization Plan.
- The province has issued a new Call for Applications for Long-Term Care Home Development, in order to deliver on its goal of building 30,000 net new long-term care beds by 2028. The ministry is evaluating applications received on a rolling basis and will make a series of allocation announcements, as decisions are made.
- Ontario plans to invest an additional $3.7 billion, beginning in 2024–25, on top of the historic $2.68 billion already invested, to support this new series of allocations for the development of 10,000 net new and more than 12,000 upgraded beds across the province. These historic investments would bring the total to $6.4 billion since spring 2019.
- Ontario now has 20,385 new and 15,918 upgraded beds in the development pipeline – which means more than 67 percent of the 30,000 net new beds being delivered are in the planning, construction and opening stages of the development process.
- The Province has taken innovative steps to get long-term care homes built, including modernizing its funding model, selling unused lands with the requirement that long-term care homes be built on portions of the properties, and leveraging hospital-owned land to build urgently needed homes in large urban areas.
- As of June 2021, more than 38,000 people were on the waitlist to access a long-term care bed in Ontario. The median wait time is 163 days for applicants to be placed in long-term care.
- The Ontario government has introduced legislation that, if passed, would improve the well-being of residents in long-term care and retirement homes, and ensure they get the care they deserve. If passed, the Providing More Care, Protecting Seniors, and Building More Beds Act, 2021 would repeal the current Long-Term Care Homes Act, 2007 and create the Fixing Long-Term Care Act, 2021. The Bill also includes proposed amendments to the Retirement Homes Act, 2010.