Creighton town council is being asked to study the possibility of a personal care home for the community.
At council’s Wednesday,
Nov. 25 meeting, Dennis Strom and Dot Hammell, representing Seniors 55 Plus, presented a petition signed by about 100 people.
The petition calls on council to allocate some of the funds received from the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) “to the study of the feasibility, design, construction and operation of an integrated Personal Care Home in Creighton.”
NWMO awarded Creighton $650,000 in recognition of the town’s participation in a process to pinpoint a storage site for Canada’s nuclear waste.
The dollars were put into a Community Well-being Fund to be used for local projects. Following a $100,000 donation to the new Flin Flon ER, the fund now contains $550,000.
In response to the Seniors 55 Plus presentation, Mayor Bruce Fidler noted that council would continue to discuss the issue, take the petition into consideration and keep in touch with Hammell and Strom.
In a brief interview after the meeting, Strom explained that council had asked the community to come forward with suggestions on how to spend the NWMO dollars, and Hammell had taken a lead on getting the petition organized and signed.
“She’s the one who said, ‘We’d better get serious here or its not going to happen,’” Strom said.
He said $500,000 was allocated for a feasibility study now underway for a 70-bed personal care home in La Ronge (with monies committed by the provincial government), but he anticipated that much less would be needed for a Creighton feasibility study.
Strom added that a feasibility study was conducted several years ago on the prospect of a Creighton-area personal care home, but he has yet to see the results.
Creighton council highlights
Other highlights from the Nov. 25 Creighton town council meeting:
• Town administrator Paula Muench noted the town has approved a request to accommodate a Creighton Community School student, Noah Capyk, for a work placement in the public works department. The placement is part of school programming to connect students with workplace learning opportunities.
• Council agreed to award tenders for dry garbage collection, and landfill supervision and pushing, to Dallen Industries. The latest animal control tender went to Tad Collier.
• Council accepted the town’s sustainability vision report, completed by MMM Consulting Group. Muench noted the document will soon be accessible to the public through the town website.
• Council carried a motion to hire Beech Electric to replace all the outside lights at the Creighton Sportex at an estimated cost of $2,100.
• Council agreed to donate $200 to Light Up For Christmas, a home-decorating contest for residents.
• Council agreed to send a letter to the owner of the provincial building to make arrangements for parking access at the back of the property, as the front street is getting too crowded and causing a safety concern.Last month, The Reminder reported that Saskatchewan’s rural and remote health minister, Greg Ottenbreit, had suggested the Town of Creighton reach out to developers to explore the option of a privately owned and operated personal care home, either as a for-profit or not-for-profit entity.
He also said Saskatchewan’s Ministry of Social Services can provide financial assistance to help seniors pay care home fees.
Strom said a private personal care home might present a cost barrier for local Saskatchewan residents, particularly if a private facility were built on the Manitoba side of the border.
In that case, he said, Saskatchewan residents would need to become Manitoba
residents and lose access to the government subsidies mentioned by Ottenbreit.
