A glut of long-term care beds blankets the province, resulting in the supply of beds outstripping demand. Nursing education has been turned upside down, because academic expectations now involve more years of study. At the same time, too few nurses compete for the same full-time jobs. It’s a tightrope of growing proportions but it is a walk that many administrators seem sure-footed enough to take up the challenge and think outside of the long-term care box.

In fact, eight out of 16 OMNI administrators saw their home as part of an organic community picture, a gestalt in a sector often identified with its challenges. This indicates an emerging movement that could set OMNI on a path that will separate it even more from its competitors.

For instance, Toni Surko, administrator of Almonte Country Haven, saw her long-term care home as a place for all seniors in the community – a potential haven, even for those seniors who had no connection to the home or to OMNI. From Almonte’s fitness programs to its pastoral services, Toni envisioned her home as an integral part of the community, not an individual ‘thing’ merely taking up square footage in the town.

Administrator Sue Matwey of Riverview Manor in Peterborough saw a strong role for her home to play in Peterborough, a good force that must develop community partnerships.

Nelly Hobbs, administrator of Rosebridge Manor, says she would like to see her home do more presentations with a variety of community partners, particularly in the psycho-geriatric vein for which Rosebridge is building a reputation upon.

Seeing one's home as contributing to an entire community through an active involvement with community partners serves to promote necessary values and secure necessary connections. It is perhaps yet one more way for OMNI to lead the sector. In fact, if fully half of OMNI’s administrators are already on board with such a theory, surely it represents opportunity that has already started to take form.

Imagine the potential for the breaking down of stereotypes about long-term care, as homes educate individuals and community partners and learn, in turn, from those same allies. Imagine the myths and perceptions that will be dispelled in long-term care when the creation of social capital confronts the reality of social need.

Does this conceptual framework for OMNI homes address the realties of recruitment and retention or the concerns over occupancy? Certainly not. These are areas in which every OMNI home has to be cognizant of. But helping to define community is an umbrella goal that administrators have identified. Again, it has the potential to set OMNI apart from its long-term care peers.

In the coming weeks we will investigate existing linkages between OMNI homes and their natural community partners, as well as endeavour to plant the seeds of future links. Perhaps we shall discover there will be relationships to be built that do not fall under the so-called ‘natural’ partnership framework.

In any event, it may soon be difficult to argue that a long-term care home is an island unto itself. Instead, it may more properly show itself to be a community oasis that will nourish those who experience its friendly, outstretched hand.