New housing for seniors opens soon in Trout Creek

Residents in Trout Creek can begin moving into a new seniors facility in early October.

It's called Trout Creek Seniors Living and the 49-bed complex is in the former Lady Isabelle nursing home that closed in 2017.

The new facility is not a nursing home, but will have staff 24 hours a day and is geared towards low-income seniors.

Dynamic Health Management, a health business company out of Toronto, bought the former nursing home and renovated the building for around $3 million.

"We have different services that include housekeeping, dietary, and home-cooked meals," said Chief operating officer Belisha Ke.

"We only have two beds per big room, as well as private rooms … Our focus is definitely on compliance as well as the care and the actives and programs that we will provide to seniors living in this home."

There's also hope the new facility could take some pressure off North Bay's hospital. Many alternative level of care patients – too ill to live alone, to healthy for the hospital – are waiting for spaces in facilities, adding to hospital overcrowding.

"In our case, we do have patients who could be cared for in a place like this, but aren't there and are still in the hospital," said North Bay Regional Health Centre CEO Paul Heinrich.

"We need the new build here in Trout Creek and many other beds because not only are there patients in the hospital getting the wrong level of care, but there's patients in the community who need to get into a home and that isn't there for them."

Ke told CTV News the facility would be much cheaper than a retirement home, costing residents around $2,000 a month in rent.