No plans to turn Pioneer Manor over to private operator, city says

Greater Sudbury won't be getting out of the long-term care business any time soon.

The recent core services review conducted by consultantsKPMG, combed through city services to see if any operating or capital efficiencies could be found. The results showed it would be a lengthy and complicated process to turn Pioneer Manor over to a private operator.

It's not mandatory for municipalities to operate long-term care homes, and some have questioned why Sudbury still does.

Aaron Archibald, director of Pioneer Manor, said if the city decided to divest itself of the 433-bed facility, the first step would be to locate an operator.

"The process would be at a minimum five years," Archibald told city council on Tuesday.

"[Then] the city would have to meet with the Ministry [of Long-Term Care], give the ministry our intent to transfer operation," Archibald said. "That operator would have to then independently apply to the ministry to take over ownership."

"The ministry would go through a vetting process to ensure that [the operator] is capable and competent to operate the home. They would hold public consultations and ultimately, even though the Long Term Care Act states that a northern municipality may maintain and operate a home, ultimately the ministry would have the final say on whether or not this city could divest itself or change operator."

Archibald also says the city could not sell its ministry-approved operator license if it wanted another operator to take over.

The city could lose its ministry-funded long term care beds, with no guarantee they would remain in Sudbury or even in northeastern Ontario.

"In the fall we met with the Northeast LHIN[Local Health Integration Network] and we posed the question: 'What would happen if these beds were closed?'and the Northeast LHIN agreed with what the ministry had told us, that the funding would not stay in the northeast," Archibald said.

"When we asked what would happen to these beds, the ministry told us that the funding for those beds would be reallocated somewhere else in the province of Ontario."