Jeremy Ratliff
Reporter
Following a busy open house event last Wednesday during which over 300 people passed through the doors of Pine Crest Nursing Home, facility staff were kept quite busy Monday morning; relocating 20 residents to the newly finished Special Care unit at the west end of the facility.
The expansion is one of a two-part project which kicked off last October.
The second project element; a 20-bed Rehabilitation Unit, is expected to be completed by mid-November.
According to Pine Crest Administrator Lisa Jervais, the expansions were necessary to keep pace with recent trends sweeping across care facilities nationwide.
“The days of residents willing to room with others is a thing of the past,” she said. “Private rooms have become a trend for some time now with facilities across the country. Residents enjoy their privacy and space to spend time with family. In fact, prior to the expansion, we had lost admissions due to the lack of private rooms.”
The new special care unit not only features 20 private rooms complete with private restrooms, but also a fully functional kitchen, outdoor atrium with flower beds and a private spa and shower room.
When completed, Gervais indicates the rehab unit will have a modern “hotel room-like feel” also featuring 20 private rooms with private restrooms and showers.
While the Special Care Unit will serve residents in need of more attentive care, such as those diagnosed with dementia, the rehab unit will serve a resident population with more short-terms needs.
“The expansion has been a very exciting experience and a learning process for both staff and administrators,” Gervais adds. “I think the most heavily impacted were our residents. After all, Pine Crest is their home and we had contractors coming into their home to perform the expansion. But they were very understanding and handled the disruption very well. Overall, I feel we had a great deal of support from the community for the expansion project from the start, and we are very thankful for that.”
According to Gervais, another community open house event is planned to accompany the completion of the new rehabilitation unit next month.