Despite what some residents might have heard, the Sundre Hospital and Care Centre is not going anywhere any time soon.
Concerns that the facility might lose its hospital status did not take long to spread through the community last week following Alberta Health Services' recent announcement that the Sundre hospital's 15 continuing care beds will be closed.
"There is absolutely no intention that this impacts the other services at the hospital," said Cathy McDonald, Alberta Health Services senior operating officer for South, Central Zone, during a phone interview with the Round Up.
"We're not losing our hospital ó we're just delivering care to seniors using a new model."
The Mountain View Seniors' Housing campus of care will open in Sundre this summer, and along with it an additional 40 supportive living beds ó also known as continuing care beds ó including some specialized beds for patients suffering from dementia, she said.
"This is the first time supportive living beds have been available in Sundre," she said.
"So with those new beds, we will be closing the 15 long-term care beds, which are continuing care beds as well, at the Sundre hospital."
In the end, the community will still gain 25 new continuing care beds, which are primarily used to provide care for seniors who require a residential or congregate setting, she said.
What guides the number of beds AHS has in a community depends on its capacity planning. Efforts are made to try to match services required in the community to the services that are being offered, she said.
"When we look at it, the 40 supportive living beds matches pretty close to what we identified the needs of the community are based on the population of Sundre and the surrounding area."
The decision to close the 15 beds at the hospital will not affect the other services the facility offers, which include acute care beds, an emergency department, an ambulatory service and mental health services, she said.
"There is no impact on other health services offered at this site," she said, adding the facility will maintain hospital status.
However, there will likely be an impact on the patients living at the Sundre Hospital and Care Centre's continuing care beds, she said.
"But we're very committed to working with each family and resident to ensure that we're finding the right place for them."
Officials are confident the new seniors' campus of care will be appropriate for the hospital's patients, she said.
"We really want to respect both the needs that patients have and what their wishes are."
That being said, she could not say for certain whether all the patients from the 15 continuing care beds at the hospital would be transferred to the Mountain View Seniors' Housing new facility.
"Everybody's circumstances are different ó we can never guarantee that someone's never going to have to move," she said.
"We need to recognize that we can't offer everything in a community like Sundre."
There are occasionally going to be some highly specialized medical services that might only be available in larger centres. A lot can be done at the Sundre hospital, but there are also cases in which staff need to refer patients to the city where there are more specialized services, she said.
"In the realm of seniors care, there are times when specialized services are required for varying lengths of time."
Among the concerns McDonald said had been brought to her attention was regarding palliative care, or end-of-life care. Typically, such care is provided in a supportive living environment such as the Mountain View Seniors' Housing facility, she told the Round Up.
In the meantime, AHS staff have started to meet with patients and their families to work towards finding suitable solutions, she said.
The new model for senior care is based largely on feedback from seniors themselves, who have told AHS they want a home-like environment to live in, even when they're dependent on others to meet their care needs, she said.
"That's what a campus of care is about ó to offer varying levels of services so that people can age in place."
Sundre is lucky to have the new Mountain View Seniors' Housing facility, which is based on the new model of care, as well as people who were so committed to move the project forward, she said.
"It's going to be a journey as we transition to this new model of care."
