Rehab centre for older adults opens in Sudbury, replacing temporary site at a hotel

A new $20-million centre for older adult rehabilitation officially opened in Sudbury, Ont., on Monday with a ceremony that included Ontario Health Minister Sylvia Jones.

The St. Joseph's Continuing Care Centre Lasalle Site will welcome 36 patients in the coming days. A second phase for the centre, expected to open in late 2025, will make another 36 beds available.

Those patients, who are all older adults who need rehabilitation services, were previously staying at a section of the city's Clarion Hotel, which was converted for that purpose at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"We knew that there was going to be a surge of COVID patients that needed acute care," said Kari Gervais, the president and CEO of the St. Joseph's Health Centre.

"So we worked very closely with our partners at Health Sciences North and Ontario Health to identify an alternate solution for patients who didn't actually need acute care but still needed a hospital level of care."

The Clarion Hotel took in those patients.

Gervais said it quickly turned from a site for alternate level of care (ALC) patients who don't need acute hospital beds to a rehabilitation site.

"We had so many patients who needed rehabilitation that we transformed the eligibility criteria so that we were taking in people who needed rehab, rather than them waiting in an acute care bed for rehab," she said.

John Roininen, a former board member with St. Joseph's Health Centre, said his 93-year-old mother was one those patients admitted to the Clarion site when she broke her hip and right arm.

"We were a bit disappointed," he said. "We were hoping to end up at the nicer site at South Bay Road."

But Roininen said the staff at the site were excellent, and helped his mother regain her mobility, even though an orthopedic surgeon told him she might never walk again.

Many of those staff members have now transferred to the purpose-built rehabilitation site on Lasalle Boulevard.

"We have a full interdisciplinary team here," Gervais said.

"So in addition to physicians who are on site every day, we also have occupational therapists, physiotherapists, recreational therapists, speech language pathologists, in addition to nursing, of course."

Provincial funding

For the first phase Ontario's Ministry of Health covered 90 per cent of the nearly $20-million price tag to build the centre.

St. Joseph's Health Centre needs to fundraise for the remaining $2 million. Gervais said they've received $500,000 in charitable donations so far.

The second half of the building is expected to be completed late next year.

Gervais says St. Joseph Continuing Care Centre is the only dedicated rehabilitation hospital for older adults in northeastern Ontario.