The Hospice of Windsor and Essex County is celebrating the grand opening of its new satellite residential location in Leamington.
The Erie Shores Campus with ten residential beds is located on Talbot Rd. across from Leamington District Memorial Hospital.
Executive Director Carol Derbyshire says the facility is for patients at the end of life whose family can no longer care for them in the home setting.
"They come in here, we get the patient settled, their loved one and they can sit back and be a husband or a wife or a son or a daughter they don't have to be a care giver and I think that's one of the biggest advantages of residential hospice care," says Derbyshire.
It took just less than two years to raise just over $5-million for the new facility and another year to build the facility. Derbyshire says in most communities this takes upwards of ten years to accomplish. The organization would still like to raise another $1-million to assist with operating costs.
"There is a gap between what we receive and what it costs. That money that we receive is mainly for the staffing," says Derbyshire.
The Leamington District Memorial Hospital Foundation has committed to raising $300,000 annually for the operation of the facility.
The hospice accepts its first patient on Monday.
"We're starting with one patient at a time every few days just so that everybody gets settled and that we don't rush people in," says Derbyshire.
