When Nancy Kidd speaks about the new continuing care facility in Whistle Bend, it’s with enthusiasm.

It will relieve the relentless pressure on the use of acute care hospital beds for non-acute patients while providing for Yukoners unable to live on their own anymore, she explains during a media tour Tuesday.

Kidd says the new facility – officially named Whistle Bend Place – is designed to provide a comfortable setting not only for the residents but visiting family members as well.

While 120 of the 150 beds are for those with less critical needs, there will be 18 beds in the hospice wing for residents living out their final days.

Another 12 beds will be available in the secure wing for patients requiring specific mental health care.

The hospice wing is not scheduled to open until 2019, followed a year later in 2020 by the mental health wing.

Whistle Bend Place is state-of-the-art, designed to be open and comfortable, says Kidd, director of the facility for the Department of Health and Social Services.

Her enthusiasm does not wane during the hour-long walk through what is still very much a construction zone.

“A year from now, our team and I will be making the beds and getting ready for admissions that will start next September,” she says. “It’s a really exciting time.

“Here we plan to offer a continuum of care, end-of-life care, as well as long-term health care.”

Project manager Grant Blackler of PCL Construction, the company building Whistle Bend Place, says there are anywhere from 150 to 160 workers on site at anyone time, 70 per cent of whom he estimates to be local.

The number is likely to rise to between 180 and 200 as they move onto the interior finishing work – electrical, drywall, plumbing, flooring....

Blackler says the schedule calls for having the building completely closed in by mid-October.

Frost in the ground that caused some heaving and delays earlier this year is gone and the ground has stabilized, but monitoring will continue, he says.

Substantial completion of the construction contract is scheduled for April 7.

Yukon government engineer Jennifer Macgillivray says change orders in the project have bumped up PCL’s original construction contract from $114 million to over $120 million.

The increase will be covered by the contingency fund built into the budget and will not affect the overall project cost of $148.7 million, she says.

As the walk-through begins, Kidd stops to describe how the main entrance is designed to provide a welcoming atmosphere.

The vehicle-pull up will be covered. Huge logs shipped up from Powell River, B.C. form part of the roof structure on the entrance.

Visitors will be met with a warming fireplace, and open space where residents are free to come and go, and free to hang out on the furniture that will be provided for that very purpose.

Large open spaces not far off from the entrance are nothing more than a maze of steel wall studs now.

They’ll eventually offer community space for various functions, perhaps film nights or performances by musicians for the residents.

“We need to have a nice big space so we can have a Christmas dance.”

The open space concept is maintained throughout the facility. The individual rooms are comfortably spacious, with equally spacious bathrooms.

Kidd explains 120 regular beds will be divided into five pods or “houses” of 24 beds each.

Now that the facility has been officially named, each house will also be named – but by the residents after they move in.

Each house will have access to an outside area, a court yard for those on the main floor and a large open balcony space for those on the second floor.

Each house will have an open space to serve as a living room and one to serve as a dining area.

Each will have kitchen facilities. While the bulk of meals will be provided by the main kitchen in the ground floor and delivered in one of the three elevators, residents will have the ability to prepare small meals and snacks in their own house.

Rooms and their bathrooms are all equipped with lifts that can be attached to ceiling tracks so staff can assist residents in any corner of the room or bathroom.

Each of the houses will have four or five rooms outfitted with features you’d expect to see in an acute care hospital room, like a built in oxygen supply.

Each patient, says Kidd, will have a device, either on a bracelet or attached to their wheelchair, that allows staff to check in and see where they are if need be.

“This is the Yukon, and this needs to be a meaningful place for Yukoners,” says Kidd.

She points out names on the wait list for long-term care beds currently fluctuate between 65 and 95, and the number of acute care hospital beds taken up by non-acute long-term care patients runs between 16 and 22.

Whistle Bend Place, she is sure, will offer its residents comfort while bringing relief to the territory’s health care system.

“This facility is crucial for the well-being of all the territory,” says Kidd.

PCL Construction will host an open house and tours of the facility on Sept. 9.

The Liberal government has said it will not follow through on the former Yukon Party regime’s plan to eventually double the size of the facility to 300 beds.