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Kathy Fortunat, CEO, Sherwood Care
This week we heard from Kathy Fortunat, the CEO of Sherwood Care, a Long Term Senior’s Care facility in Sherwood Park about their expansion plans for Strathcona County and surrounding area. She told us that their facility is a private non-profit, long term care facility contracted to Assisted Care Alberta for the frailest of the frail and has been in operation since 1969. They currently have one hundred ‘Type A’ care (the highest level of care) beds at their facility next to Festival Place and Broadmoor Lake Park in Sherwood Park. In 2023 they received a grant from the Alberta government to allow them to replace their current facility and expand their capacity to two hundred Type A beds plus 13 hospice beds. She said that they also serve as the meal preparation and distribution hub for Meals on Wheels for Strathcona County. The new facility will remain at the current location. Kathy told us that construction for the new facility began in 2024 and is scheduled to be finished in 2027.
The new facility will be a six story building with three fourteen bed household units, each with a kitchenette and dining area on each floor. She told us that this new type of floor plan layout allows for more space for each patient, shorter hallways and a smaller more family style atmosphere while also increasing the level of security that they can offer their very frail patients. The new facility will also have more large public spaces for family and community functions. Kathy also told us that the amount they are allowed to charge for care in their facility is set by the government and is the same across all care facilities, both old and new, private for-profit, private non-profit or government owned in Alberta for this level of care.
Kathy told us that their facility has a very good reputation and they work very hard to support their staff in any way they can to be able to maintain this. She also told us that they have around one hundred volunteers who come in to provide many varied types of enrichment for their patients, ranging from providing piano music at lunch time to taking them for outdoor walks through the adjacent park to providing art programs to playing cards with individual patients. They also manage another thirty volunteers who help to deliver the daily hot meals program.
She said that they try to provide the best currently available medical care for their patients. One of these is through the use of a pain recognition system that can tell them how much pain a non-verbal person is in by analysing their facial expression. This really helps them to provide a more appropriate level of pain control for their patients.
Kathy told us that the government committed to providing eighty percent of the projected cost of construction with the remainder to be provided by them. They have managed to raise most of the remainder needed however costs have increased and they are currently still fundraising. She said that the fact that this type of care is only needed by about seven percent of the population combined with the fact that most people do not want to think about needing this type of care for themselves or family members means that it is not as simple to inspire others to contribute as for other types of care. She said that they welcome all types of contributions from volunteer time to monetary support.
We would like to thank Kathy for her very informative presentation and for taking the time to share the news of this new facility with us.
"The Friendly Club"
Edmonton, AB T6X 0P9
Canada