St. Thomas University- Gerontology Department

Tag, you're it! 👋 Only this time, everyone wins. Through Together Across Generations (TAG), HelpAge Canada and GrandPals are helping older adults and students build meaningful relationships through storytelling, friendship, and shared experiences.

See the full partnership announcement ➡️ https://loom.ly/l0x3mfg

Mark your calendars!
📆
Death Cafes are returning for the Fall!

Tuesday September 22 at 2pm
Tuesday October 20 at 2pm
November 17 at 2pm.

All will be held at the Bibliothèque publique de Fredericton Public Library
12 Carlton Street
Fredericton, NB.

No agenda. No experts. No speakers.
Just a safe place to talk about Death.

FREE admission
No pre-registration required.
See you soon!

Departmental Assistant (Gerontology) Employment Opportunity

jobs.careerbeacon.com

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This week, we're celebrating New Brunswick's special care homes and the people who make them what they are.

All special care homes across the province now have access to Extra-Mural nursing care, connecting more than 7,000 people with the care they need, right where they live.

None of this happens without the dedication of special care home staff and caregivers. Thank you for the compassion and care you bring to New Brunswickers every single day.

Tiny homes for older women.

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The Bird's Nest A Tiny House Community

UPDATE: Province seeks builders for more seniors' beds to help ease hospital crunch
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Summarize
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Retired health executive says move could finally create change for the better in strained system

Published Aug 10, 2026 • Last updated 4 days ago • 4 minute read

0810 lb nursing homes
The Holt Liberal government is seeking builders to create 360 long-term care beds across the province. Photo by Age Cymru/ Unsplash
New Brunswick’s Liberal government is inching forward with its plan to help relieve the crush of patients in hospitals and open more long-term care beds for seniors.

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On Monday, it announced it was seeking expressions of interest from builders that want to create 360 long-term beds, “helping reduce pressure on hospitals while ensuring more seniors receive the right care in the right setting.”

The move was the latest part of the Holt government’s seniors and long-term care plan released on March 26, backed by $993 million in this year’s provincial budget.

“Expanding long-term care capacity is an important step toward reducing pressure on our hospitals and improving access to care for seniors,” stated Seniors Minister Lyne Chantal Boudreau in a news release. “By creating 360 new beds, we will help reduce pressure on hospitals while improving quality of life for seniors and their families.”

For many years, the province has had a disproportionally high number of seniors in hospital beds who have been medically discharged but can’t be sent back home because they’re too frail.

These so-called alternate level of care patients take up as many as four of every 10 hospital beds. They seemingly have nowhere to go because there aren’t enough nursing home beds.

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The occupied hospital beds mean emergency room and surgical patients often can’t find enough space, pushing people into gurneys in hospital hallways or anywhere space can be found. It also means elective surgeries are often postponed.

The Holt government has made it a priority to ease the buckling healthcare system that’s suffering from the enormity of a big, aging cohort – the baby boomers – who have plenty of chronic diseases. The youngest of the demographic is now 61 years of age.

Ken McGeorge, a retired hospital and nursing home executive, welcomed the news on Monday, saying the announcement was a positive start.

“It will certainly help,” he said from a beach on Grand Manan. “It makes a whole lot of sense for a whole lot of reasons. Thus far, any expansion of capacity has been nursing homes. And nursing homes are the most expensive way to look after long-term care people. So the government needs to keep the plan a little more general. Because there are special-care homes that are doing very good work that can handle 60 per cent of the volume.”

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McGeorge, who spent most of his career running hospitals in Nova Scotia and Ontario, but also did stints as the executive in charge of the Dr. Everett Chalmers Regional Hospital and the York Care Centre nursing home, both in Fredericton, is a big proponent of special-care homes.

They have far more beds in New Brunswick than nursing homes do – about 7,000 beds spread across more than 400 homes.

Nursing homes, by contrast, have about 5,000 beds in more than 70 facilities.

Special-care homes don’t have the same staffing levels and often can’t accept the highest-need clients.

But McGeorge, who spent several years working as a consultant for the New Brunswick Special Care Home Association and is a columnist for Brunswick News, says part of the problem is the way needs are assessed.

“Some special-care homes can’t handle the people in hospitals, some can, and can do it very well,” he said. “One of the missing elements in the long-term care plan is to define a special care home. People get very confused with levels of care in long-term care, whether it’s Level 3 or 3B, there are so many categories it makes everyone’s head spin. They’ve got to get that straightened out.”

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According to the provincial government, the greatest overcapacity in its hospitals is in the west-central, southeast, and southwest areas of New Brunswick. This is also where the three biggest cities are located, Fredericton, Moncton and Saint John, respectively.

The current median wait time for nursing homes is 171 days in the central zone, 112 days in the southwest, and 106 days in the southeast, also centred on those three cities.

“However, there are needs in every region of the province,” said Johanne LeBlanc, a spokeswoman for the provincial government, in an email.

The news release on Monday stated various types of projects may be considered, including new facility construction, expansions and renovations to existing facilities, and even the conversion of beds from one form of care to another.

The government said the flexibility was meant to create new beds as efficiently as possible, support timely access to long-term care and help reduce pressure on hospitals.

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It told potential builders the expressions of interest would be evaluated based on several factors, including project feasibility and readiness, need for beds in the geographic area, and project costs and timelines.

The process has not been subjected to bids and is considered non-binding, meaning the government can reject the proposals if they don’t seem like a good fit.

“No projects related to the 360 beds will proceed until a formal exploration agreement has been reached,” the release stated, welcoming builders to contact the Department of Social Development for more information.

The department told Brunswick News it would week proposals until March 31, 2027, with potential extensions until all the 360 long-term care beds are allocated.

However, the first assessment period is planned to start this October, and respondents are encouraged to submit their proposals by Sept. 30.

It’s an open question when the new beds will be added.

“There’s no target date,” said LeBlanc in an email. “Although, the goal is to have the projects ready to start as soon as possible.”

In March, the Holt Liberal government released the long-term care plan, pledging to add 624 nursing home beds to the system by 2030. About 240 of those beds were expected to be ready in 2027.

In late June, Greg Doiron, an executive at the Horizon Health Network, which serves mostly southern and anglophone communities, said at the organization’s public board meeting that about 330 elderly patients could be moved out of its hospitals right away if there were available long-term care beds.

– with files from Barbara Simpson

The Holt Liberal government is seeking builders to create 360 long-term care beds across the province. Photo by Age Cymru/ Unsplash

We have a fun loving older lady in an oromocto care home who loves cards and games of all sorts and would love to meet someone to play with her and shoot the breeze! If you are willing and able please call or text 5062616551 or dm me here. Thank you!