New 280-bed care home in Edmonton will help free up healthcare spaces in the future, minister says

Ground has been broken for a seven-storey continuing care home in west Edmonton, a facility that will eventually bring some relief to waitlists and hospital pressures, the province’s health minister said.

Adriana LaGrange was among the officials to shovel dirt at the site Tuesday afternoon, located on Lewis Greens Dr., near Winterburn Road and Anthony Henday Dr.

Alberta taxpayers are contributing $126 million to the project and The Good Samaritan Society is putting in $39 million.

The facility will be home to 280 people with complex health needs, mostly seniors, and is slated to open in 2027.

“We know that we have roughly 500 people in Alberta that need continuing care spaces and we don’t have the right kind of continuing care spaces available for them. So, this will go a long way to help that,’ LaGrange told CityNews.

Critics and some doctors claim there is a current crisis in Alberta healthcare, with hospitals struggling to keep up. So, CityNews also asked LaGrange for a general check-up on the system.

“We’re heading into respiratory virus season, that always has an increase in numbers,” she said.

“So, I know that Alberta Health Services has already started to increase its surge capacity to deal with those increases as well as hiring the staff.”

LaGrange said hospital availability is constantly shifting but her office is monitoring to make sure there’s room for people in need of treatment.

The new continuing care centre will replace 149 beds at Good Sam’s Southgate facility and add new ones.

Officials say culturally appropriate spaces will be made for Indigenous Elders and there are talks to have a section for LGBTQ2S+ residents.

The design is meant to feel more like a home setting with services than a hospital.

“We’re actually going to have 20 houses under one roof,” said Dr. Katherine Chubbs, president and CEO of The Good Samaritan Society.

“So it will look and feel just like your house, it’ll have a front door just like your own house, but it’ll be within a complex.”

Dr. Chubbs says this will be the largest care home project in the 75-year history of The Good Samaritan Society.