More than 2,000 visits at care home pods

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This article was published 05/05/2021 (1732 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Between December 2020 and mid-April 2021, there were more than 2,000 visits to the 41 visitation pods and visitation rooms at personal care homes run by Prairie Mountain Health.

Announced last September by former health minister Cameron Friesen, the shelters were intended as a way for loved ones to visit residents at personal care homes across the province while keeping a physical barrier in place to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

Data obtained by the Sun from Prairie Mountain Health show that the pods, as well as indoor visitation rooms that were set up in some locations, are being used.

The health region provided a list of the personal care homes it runs that have pods or visitation rooms as well as how many times each pod has been used since it opened. Data for each of the pods has a varying cut off point between April 13-16.

Of the 39 pods that had been opened for use at the time the data was collected, by far the most popular was the one at Minnedosa Personal Care Home, with 291 visits since it opened on Dec. 21, 2020. This pod has been open the longest in Prairie Mountain Health, sharing an opening date with the pod at Baldur PCH.

A distant second was the Swan Valley Lodge personal care home, with 187 visits since it opened on Jan. 20.

The busiest pod in Brandon has been at Fairview personal care home, which has had 145 visits since it opened on Jan. 21.

At Rideau Park personal care home in Brandon, internal visits started on Jan. 13, and pod visits started on March 15. There have been 53 visits at that home.

In the data provided, the pod at the Cartwright personal care home had received the fewest visits with four, but it had only opened a few days before the data’s cutoff point.

Unfortunately, the uneven cutoff points for the data at each of the pods means that analysis of the pods as a whole is tricky, but a total of 2,136 visits were recorded in the information received by the Sun for an average of 53 visits to each of the pods that had been opened.

That total is comparable to the total number of visits the pods in the Winnipeg health region are getting.

According to data obtained from the Winnipeg health region, there were 9,586 visits at 34 of the 38 pods and visitation rooms at personal care homes in the provincial capital between Dec. 1, 2020 and the end of March.

Using population totals for Manitoba’s health regions from a 2019 document on the provincial government’s website, Winnipeg has had approximately 1,222 visits per 100,000 people, while Prairie Mountain Health has had approximately 1,245 visits per 100,000 people.

The different cutoff points for the data sets from both health regions means the comparison is a bit inaccurate, but the figures are in the same ballpark.

While the pods are definitely being used, the cost of the endeavour has gone up significantly since the first announcement.

When Friesen first announced the project, it was said that the contract to build the external shelters was awarded to PCL Constructors Canada Inc. for a price of $17.9 million.

However, the spokesperson stated that the initial project budget was $26.4 million, and so it is considered to have come in under budget.

Costs for the internal visitation shelters were still being figured out, but the spokesperson said the total project budget was $14 million and the budgeted per-unit costs were $251,667.

Put together, the budgeted cost for both internal and external visitation shelters was supposed to be $39.8 million. Additionally, operating costs for the project are estimated to be at $46 million over two years.

» cslark@brandonsun.com

» Twitter: @ColinSlark