Region gets extra 148 long-term care beds

WATERLOO REGION — Waterloo Region is getting 148 new longterm care beds to ease the strain on hospitals.

The Village of Winston Park in Kitchener will get 97 beds, and Saint Luke’s Place in Cambridge will get 51.

The additional beds locally are among 6,000 long-term care beds the provincial government will open across Ontario in its bid to end hallway medicine in hospitals.

Those long-term care beds are the first wave of more than 15,000 new beds the province has committed to build over the next five years, Minister of Health and Long-Term Care Christine Elliott announced Wednesday.

“It’s a great first step,” said Kitchener-Conestoga MPP Michael Harris. “It’s great news for Waterloo Region.”

The province’s population is aging, and more people are in need of a comfortable place to live when they can no longer stay in their homes,” he said.

“It’s also important because this will help reduce hospital wait times,” he said. “You’ve got space being taken up in hospitals because there just aren’t enough long-term care beds.”

Harris could not say when the new long-term care beds would open in Kitchener and Cambridge.

The province also announced that 640 new hospital beds will be created and funding will be renewed for 400 opened under the previous government as an immediate measure to prepare for the upcoming flu season.