By Mike Renzella
The Haldimand Press
DUNNVILLE—Last week, Haldimand County Council approved emergency funding in the amount of $22,500 to replace approximately 100 feet of cast iron pipe at Grandview Lodge (GVL), a County-run long-term care home based out of Dunnville. The pipe failed internally, causing multiple sewer backups in the building in October.
The pipe dates to the original construction of Grandview in the 1960s. With no provisions in the 2022 budget to accommodate such a repair, County staff recommended the funds be pulled from the Capital Replacement Reserve.
Councillor Rob Shirton asked GVL Facility Operations Supervisor Kellen Mowat if there was more old infrastructure in the building that might result in similar issues in the near future.
“Yes there is,” replied Mowat. “We had a facility assessment completed a couple years ago, which identified a lot of those replacements. This specific report is a bit of a catch for us, given some of the as-built drawings we received from the construction contractor that was on-site, the cast that’s in this report is identified as being replaced with the redevelopment in 2005.”
He continued, “There is roughly another 300 feet of cast that’s existed since the original build … (and we need) to identify that for replacement going forward. There’s definitely going to be incidents given the shape of what we just pulled out. It’s just a matter of if we can catch it.”
The original cast-iron pipe has been replaced with fire-rated PVC piping, which has a service life of 100 years due to its immunity to corrosion.
Grandview Committee of Management
In other GVL-related news, Haldimand Council has been assigned a new role as the official Committee of Management for the facility, fulfilling a new provincial requirement as outlined in the Fixing Long Term Cares Homes Act.
According to the act, the only specific requirement listed in relation to the committee is that at least three members are active councillors.
“It’s something that is a formality,” said Cathy Case, General Manager of Corporate and Social Services. “There really wouldn’t be much change.”
According to a staff report, making Council the committee allows all members of Council to remain up-to-date and informed on issues impacting the operation of the facility in a timely fashion.
“Other municipalities do have a separate management committee, some use all of Council. This is legislation that is required across all long-term care homes, not just municipally run homes, so that’s why it’s vague in the legislation,” said Case.
“We have one home, so it makes sense, and is more efficient from a staff and Council perspective to just continue to bring the reports forward in this forum rather than creating a separate committee that would meet separately, with agendas created by staff separately, which would still be brought here to be ratified anyway,” concluded Case.
