New Inglewood Care Centre will be accessible for seniors right down to the gym, the picnic area - even the children’s playground
West Vancouver, B.C., January 12, 2022: It’s not unusual for a seniors living locations to have good accessibility for those with mobility challenges - but the proposed new Inglewood Care Centre will meet a new “gold standard”.
After consultations between the North Shore Advisory Committee on Disability Issues and Baptist Housing, Inglewood’s accessibility will go far beyond just enabling residents to get around in their own rooms, kitchens and bathrooms, contributing to the best possible lifestyle for the residents living there.
Key accessibility additions are planned that will contribute to life beyond their rooms:
- ROOM TO MOVE, EVEN IN THE COURTYARD - Getting outdoors means using outdoor tables and chairs. For residents using wheelchairs, walkers or scooters, the legs under a picnic table can be problematic. The answer: Inglewood outdoor furniture will be pedestal mounted at the middle, reducing interference from legs near the edges and allowing more knee space. Outdoor tables will also have an extra-large overhang at the end, so a resident has room to fit a wheelchair under it.
- SMOOTH AND EVEN, NO TRIPPING - Pathways will be continuous hard surfaces on level ground to prevent tripping hazards, to make it easy for seniors with mobility equipment, and to safeguard those who are blind or partially sighted as they move around.
- A GYM MADE FOR MOBILITY - The fitness centre will also be accessible. Mobility challenges or not, everyone knows “if you don’t use it, you lose it.” Exercise equipment will have removable seating, and there will be room for accessibility between pieces of equipment.
“Our approach for the Continuum of Care at the new Inglewood ensures our residents can enjoy life and be as active as they want to be. That’s very important to us,” says Marc Kinna, president and CEO of Baptist Housing. “We’re pleased that we, the architects, and the Advisory Committee agree our residents deserve the best, and that building gold-standard accessibility from the bottom up is the way to make it happen.
“It’s consistent with our desire to design the new Inglewood the right way from the start, with new ideas like our “household of 12” floor plan approach,” adds Kinna. “These neighbourhood clusters embody health and safety features developed with Vancouver Coastal Health in direct response to what we’ve learned from the COVID-19 pandemic. This simple, yet innovative, floor plan will help inhibit the spread of COVID or any other virus among our residents, their family members, and our team members.”
Among additional accessibility features being built into all long-term care communities:
- Fully accessible shared kitchens with wheelchair height counters, extra knee room and auto-shut off appliances.
- Showers with grab bars, and compressible thresholds facilitate mobility.
- Large turning radius space within each room so mobility equipment can easy be turned around.
- All long-term care and assisted living units at Inglewood will be accessible. All independent living and affordable housing units will be adaptable, meaning they will be designed to be easily converted into an accessible unit as needed with just minor renovations.
Under the proposal submitted to the District of West Vancouver, the 230 long term care suites at Inglewood currently funded by Vancouver Coastal Health will eventually expand to 312 (230 replacement funded LTC suites plus 10 new private pay LTC suites in phase one, and 72 more private pay LTC suites in later phases).
Under the “Continuum of Care” approach, seniors live in the kind of community best suited to them, even if needs should change as they age. Residents will be able to age within the same community, remaining close to friends, family, and familiar supports. The Continuum of Care also allows spouses to remain close to each other in the same community, even if their individual levels of care start to differ.
About Baptist Housing
As a non-profit faith organization, Baptist Housing has a rich history of serving seniors in British Columbia. Our first senior living community was built in Vancouver’s Killarney neighbourhood in 1964. Today, we serve over 2750 residents supported by 2500 team members. Our 21 senior living communities offer Independent Living, Assisted Living, Long-Term Care and affordable housing for seniors in Vancouver, West Vancouver, Maple Ridge, Abbotsford, Victoria, Kelowna, White Rock, Salmon Arm and Armstrong. For more information on the Inglewood Care Centre project and Baptist Housing, please visit baptisthousing.org
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Media contact:
Deanna Bogart
cel. 604.862.2300