The plans for the new nursing home in Estevan are progressing as the province has shown off its business case for the building.

Members of the Estevan Regional Nursing Home committee met with Tim McLeod, minister of rural and remote health, Lori Carr, the MLA for Estevan, and other representatives last week.

The business case addressed a rise in the number of long-term care beds that would be needed in Estevan, which rose from 108 to 167 last year.

Committee Chair Don Kindopp says that would require 129 beds to be built in Estevan considering the 38 which are already based at St. Joseph's Hospital.

Kindopp says one component of the plan looked at where the home might eventually be built.

"At the business plan meeting, we were given the option, first thing we discussed was location, where would we locate the new construction and that. So, would it go on the grounds of St. Joseph's Hospital or would it go on a green space. That green space is located just across Sister Roddy Road from St. Joseph's Hospital."

Another topic was moving all the long-term care beds to one facility rather than splitting those with the hospital.

"Between the middle of last year and at the meeting in March," said Kindopp, "The option came of constructing the 167 beds as one facility. In other words, not utilizing the 38 long-term care beds that we presently have at Saint Joseph's Hospital. I guess in my mind there's an option A where we construct 129 new beds and continue to use the 38 beds at Saint Joseph's Hospital, or do we construct a new facility for 167 beds and then in either one of the cases where do we fit those buildings?"

Kindopp says they're looking at the pros and cons of each decision, including any potential costs.

"One of the things that pops in mind is what would this cost us because we were as the Estevan Regional Nursing Home committee looking at replacing the 70 current beds at the Regional nursing home and we thought that that time the estimated $40 million would cover the construction of the of the 70 new bed building."

"So it doesn't take. Much to put together the fact that if you're looking at $40 million for 70 new beds that when you're going to build 129 or 167 new beds, then the cost is going to go up significantly. The other factor we enter into that is that when we were looking at $40 million, we were looking at construction eight years ago. So there's also the inflationary factor that would would would add into this."