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All 21 seniors living in the Grenfell Pioneer Home will have to move to other care homes within the next three weeks due to mould found in the building.
The Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) conducted an investigation and found mould growing in several locations including resident rooms and common areas around the care home.
“One of the recommendations based on that is to proactively as a precautionary measure, move the 21 residents temporarily to other locations so that further investigation and potentially remediation can be done,” explained Karen Earnshaw, the vice president of integrated rural health with the SHA.
Earnshaw said the health authority and local leadership is meeting personally with the families of residents to discuss options and preferred locations to move to in the surrounding communities.
“We’re working with them to try to accommodate peoples’ relocation to be as close to home as possible, with the first priority being in a facility that provides long term care and also that would require the least amount of moves for our residents,” Earnshaw said.
She noted there are long-term care beds available in the surrounding communities of Indian Head, Wolseley, Montmarte, Broadview, Moosomin, Kipling and Melville.
The move comes two years after Grenfell Pioneer Home had to permanently close a wing of the building because it was deemed to be unsafe for eight residents living there.
The SHA won’t know more about the state of the building until the residents are moved out and more investigation work can be done.
“We really can’t give them a timeline, it depends on what the further work finds and what the options are,” Earnshaw said, noting the families have been made aware of this.
“If further investigation determines that remediation actually is not extensive, then it could be months, but if it’s extensive and particularly if a new build is required, then everybody knows it takes time to build a new building.”
The SHA and Ministry of Health are considering options that could include remediation or building a new facility. Earnshaw said the government has previously committed to providing long-term care in the community of Grenfell.
