The Whistle Bend continuing care facility will open in October with 150 continuing care beds, the Department of Health and Social Services confirmed Tuesday.

That marks a departure from previous planning.

As Patti McLeod, the Yukon Party’s Health and Social Services critic, pointed out in the legislature Monday, the government had articulated a vision for 120 continuing care beds to open at Whistle Bend.

Another 30 beds were to have been set aside for specialized units slated to open in subsequent years.

This plan was shared with the media on a site tour in August 2017.

Health and Social Services Minister Pauline Frost told the house Monday that Whistle Bend will instead open with 150 beds. The goal is to help address a well-publicized shortage of such spaces for the Yukon’s aging population.

“Rather than having beds vacant in the Whistle Bend continuing care facility, we will open up all of the beds to alleviate the pressures,” the minister explained.

Pat Living, a Health and Social Services spokesperson, clarified Tuesday morning that in October, Whistle Bend will open with 150 continuing care beds.

In 2019, 18 of those 150 beds will transition to a palliative care unit.

In 2020, 12 more will move into a new unit for people with “very complex care needs,” including but not limited to Alzheimer’s and Dementia.

The rationale behind opening the facility with all of its 150 beds dedicated to continuing care, Living explained, is that “we don’t want to have beds sitting empty if we have people in need.”

The fluctuating wait list for placement in a continuing care facility typically hosts between 65 and 85 names, and it’s been as high as 95, according to Living.

Add to that number the 47 residents in the aging Macaulay Lodge facility – which the government is looking to close – and a 120-bed Whistle Bend centre would not be able to accommodate the need, she said.

But the new plan is troubling to the official Opposition.

“We’re somewhat concerned,” McLeod told the Star Tuesday, “the identified mental health beds and palliative care beds might not be available when people need them.”

The minister hasn’t quantified the number of beds they actually expect to fill when Whistle Bend opens, she pointed out.

Minister Frost was not made available to the Star for an interview this morning.

“Is it the minister’s plan to move 30 people out in year 2 to make room for Yukoners requiring the palliative and mental health beds?” McLeod asked in the legislature Tuesday.

“There is always a plan,” Frost confirmed, but didn’t address the concern about potential resident rearrangement.

Living provided more detail to the Star.

“Individuals who perhaps require palliative, or who have complex care needs, could be in that 150 cadre,” she explained Tuesday.

The department already provides both kinds of specialized care in its facilities, she said, and Whistle Bend, come fall 2018, will be no exception.

“It would just mean that it’s not necessarily ... in a dedicated unit,” which is what the department is planning to eventually create at Whistle Bend.

“And as we develop the programming, we’ll transition people into the actual units.”

It is “entirely possible,” Living confirmed, that at the time of transition, a palliative or complex care bed could be occupied by someone who doesn’t have these specialized needs.

“But ... through attrition and through moving people around, we will be able to create the units we need to create.”

Unfortunately, as she pointed out, “people who are in our care, might die.”

But why not just open the palliative and complex care units right away?

McLeod posed this question in the house and again in Tuesday’s interview.

“I would like to do that; however, at this point in time, that is not possible,” Frost responded.

“To provide care in these specialized facilities, you require specialized services and specialized individuals. We are working diligently to ensure that we have these supports in place in due time.”

Living could not clarify what additional supports are slated between the time Whistle Bend opens and when these specialized units will open, before this afternoon’s press deadline.

The question of how much this new 150-bed opening plan will cost also remains unanswered.

Frost didn’t respond when it was posed in the legislature Tuesday.

Living did not provide a number before today’s press deadline.

When Whistle Bend opens in the fall, its beds will be filled by individuals on the continuing care wait list, as well as those from other care facilities, according to Living.

Most will be from Macaulay Lodge, which has “reached the end of its youthful days,” she said.

The Riverdale facility will close, but when exactly, she could not say. Residents will be given the choice to move to Whistle Bend, or another care facility.

“Now we can’t guarantee that everybody’s going to get their preference,” Living said, but noted the department is working with residents and families and guardians where applicable to look at relocation options.

The department is also talking to residents at other facilities to see if they’re interested in moving to a new location.

There are currently five continuing care facilities in the Yukon, according to the Health and Social Services website – Birch Lodge, Copper Ridge Place, Macaulay Lodge, McDonald Lodge, and the Thomson Centre.

The government issued a press release Tuesday to herald the opening of 10 new long-term care beds at the 26-year-old Thomson Centre.

However, neither Living nor the Yukon Hospital Corp. – where Living directed the Star – could speak to when these beds will open.

“There’s a bunch of different moving parts, essentially, but the only thing definitive I was able to confirm today is that we anticipate construction to start over the next several months,” Cam Heke, the hospital corporation’s spokesperson, told the Star Tuesday.