The CAQ government on Tuesday inaugurated the first-ever senior and alternative home in Greater Quebec City, in the Saint-Étienne-de-Lauzon sector of Lévis.
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Located at 540 avenue Albert-Rousseau, it has 120 spaces, including 96 for seniors and 24 for adults with special needs. It has 10 units of 12 rooms each, with adapted toilets and showers for each person accommodated.
The facility, which was built at a cost of $73 million, will welcome its first residents on February 20. However, their arrival will be gradual, particularly because of the challenges of recruiting workers.
“We will therefore start with two houses, i.e. with 24 people who will gradually move in,” said Minister of Health and Senior Citizens Sonia Bélanger.
It is currently not possible to predict when the new retirement home with 120 of the 250 employees required for operations will be able to accommodate more residents.
“We are working in parallel with my colleague, Minister Christian Dubé, to train more specialists, train more doctors, train more employees. We are mobilized with the Ministry of Higher Education and the Ministry of Education. We’ll be doing parallel programs to speed up the training, so it’s not magic thinking. We have needs, we are starting, we are looking to the future and we will gradually go there according to the available workforce,” Minister Bélanger said.
“The people of Chaudière-Appalaches need these spaces. We have an aging population and need more and more housing,” said CISSS President and CEO Patrick Simard.
This is the second retirement home to open in the province, following the one in Sherbrooke.
In addition to Saint-Étienne-de-Lauzon, another retirement home is scheduled to open in Thetford Mines in the Chaudière-Appalaches region in 2023. One is also being built near Saint-Martin in Beauce.
These are part of the 46 retirement homes announced by the Legault government, totaling 3,480 places.
– Danny Côté takes you on a video tour of the Saint-Étienne-de-Lauzon retirement home
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