3 couples reunited as Tignish Seniors Home opens its 12 new long-term care beds

A Tignish seniors home now has spaces available to let long-term care patients from western Prince Edward Island live closer to their own communities.

Penny MacLeod, president of the board of directors for the Tignish Seniors Home Care Co-operative, said people quickly snapped up the 12 new long-term care beds the province recently funded, in a new wing that supplements the existing 52 community-care spaces.

"All 12 are filled... We have nine residents in right now, so there's three to come, but we know who they are," she said Monday.  

Already, the new spaces have meant three couples could be reunited in the same building after having had to live apart due to where vacancies suitable to their care needs were located. 

Among them are Vincent and Alma Doucette, who have been married since 1980 but were separated for the last two years. Asked what she was looking forward to, Alma Doucette replied: "Just being together, and to do things together."

The new wing will have a nurse practitioner affiliated to provide care for the patients, something MacLeod called "absolutely amazing," given how hard it has proven for long-term care homes to find a medical doctor with the time to provide.  

"We know there is a shortage of doctors, so having a nurse practitioner should be a game changer," she said. "We're seeing them being used more and more... in care situations."

The co-operative is a non-profit, so that means volunteers had to raise funds for the new wing in order to be able to host the long-term care beds. 

"We lobbied government, and we did get a loan through Finance P.E.I., but we [had to] come up with $600,000 on our own," said MacLeod. 

They reached out for donations through public announcements, brochures, and mail-outs.

"We had some very generous donations. The Tignish Branch Number 6 Royal Canadian Legion gave us $150,000, so they are our gold contributor," MacLeod said.

"We've had a couple $100,000 donations — one from the Town of Tignish, and one from Provincial Credit Union, also from Bob's Pharmacy."

MacLeod said that some of the donations were pledges, so the money will be paid to the co-operative over the course of up to a decade or more.

"In the case of the legion, they gave us the full $150,000 to help us," she added.