Last resident of Winnipeg's Parkview Place care home moved out, site set to close by August

A Winnipeg long-term care home where 30 people died from COVID-19 has moved its last resident out to a new home.

Parkview Place was the site of one of the province's deadliest COVID-19 outbreaks, which began in mid-September 2020 and wasn't declared over until Jan. 12, 2021.

The downtown facility also had a cockroach infestationand faced a licensing review.

The facility was run by for-profit company Revera, who announced its plans to close the facility last August.

At the time, the company said the decision to close the home was due to the building's aging and outdated infrastructure that "cannot simply be renovated to meet today's long-term care standards."

"While this decision was made independent of the home's heartbreaking outbreak this past winter, the outbreak reinforced that closing is the right thing to do," the company said in a news release on Aug. 10, 2021.

A spokesperson for the company said the home's last remaining resident was moved to a new home Friday.

Some workers will stay at the site to help decommission the building.

Revera plans to close the facility completely by August, and hasn't made a decision on the building's future.

While the facility was clearly in need of improvements in order to provide adequate care to seniors living there, its closure now means a loss of long-term care spaces in the province, which is concerning, said Laura Tamblyn Watts, the CEO of CanAge, a national organization that advocates for seniors.

"It's very unclear whether or not those pieces could have been put together in a plan to allow residents to stay in their homes," she said.

Tamblyn Watts said she would have rather seen Revera spend the money it needed to upgrade Parkview Place.

"Parkview was a problematic personal care home. It consistently didn't make the investments it needs to make sure that seniors and vulnerable people could live safely," she said.

"But having it just close its doors also creates a gap in the system. If we keep closing the doors of personal care homes because they're not meeting standards, we won't have any left."