New community wellness centre opens in New Waterford

Some people are uncertain of the purpose of the new community wellness centre in New Waterford, N.S.

The new community wellness centre in New Waterford, N.S., opened to the public on Monday, but even some of the project’s proponents said there are people in the local area who are still unclear about the exact purpose of the brand-new facility.

“Most people in the community are not terribly sure about what’s going to happen here yet,” said Dr. Peter Littlejohn, a retired family physician who worked in New Waterford for more than 40 years.

The new wellness centre will be home to a youth centre downstairs and a family resource centre upstairs, along with a gymnasium and spaces for things like seniors’ programs, music and art.

Eventually, it will be part of a community hub that will include a health centre with a dozen short-stay beds, but that phase of the project is still years away.

“What we’ve got in the moment is a fairly good collaborative centre in the hospital with physicians and nurse practitioners - so there’s no acute need,” Dr. Littlejohn said.

“But the hospital is becoming- it’s not really fit for purpose.”

Nearly seven years ago, when then-premier Stephen McNeil announced that the aging hospitals in New Waterford and North Sydney would eventually close, people protested.

Former area councillor Lowell Cormier feels peoples' opinions in the community may have changed over time.

“I think the attitude has shifted,” Cormier said. “I think they’ll welcome the new health centre with the collaborative health practice.”

The space next door, where the old Breton Education Centre high school and middle school is currently being demolished, will one day be home to the health centre and to a 60-bed long-term care facility.

For now, an open house was held Monday afternoon to give people a better idea of the Community Wellness Centre’s purpose.

“They don’t know exactly what this is, and I think as we go forward it’s up to us to educate them,” Cormier said.

The new wellness centre might be able to make a difference right away with prenatal programs and others addressing problems like food insecurity which officials say is important given the community’s high poverty rate.

“It’s a real game-changer for our families,” said JoAnna LaTulippe-Rochon, executive director of Cape Breton Family Place Resource Centre. “So, we can do some low-cost cooking programs and then provide people with some of those basic shelf items so that maybe then you just have to buy the fresh things to go along with it.”

The total cost of the new wellness centre, according to the Nova Scotia Health Authority, was $8.2 million.

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