26 beds at Manitoba nursing home closed for months because of government delays fixing elevator – CBC

Funding for repairs confirmed after CBC asks the government about the problem

Oct 31, 2024

A personal care home in Winkler, Man., has been forced to close 26 desperately needed beds after its elevator became unstable, and petitioned the provincial government for months before Shared Health finally committed to fund the repair.

Karin Oliveira, CEO of Salem Home, had to make the difficult decision last month to move 26 people off the facility’s second floor after she lost confidence in the elevator that kept breaking down.

“The risk of it failing is big so we didn’t want to risk of … all of a sudden it stops working and then they are stuck, literally stuck up there.” she said.

Salem Home officials had known for years the elevator needed to be repaired, and put out a tender in March to get the work done.

However, after they posted the tender Oliveira couldn’t get a straight answer from Shared Health about whether it would fund the roughly $200,000 repair. The answer would give them the green light to move the patients, but no one was getting back to them.

Read more: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/nursing-home-elevator-salem-1.7368244