Residents in Carman and area are eager to see construction on a new personal care home begin soon.

A final plan for an 80 bed facility and a renovation to the Boyne Lodge was submitted to Manitoba Health in June by Boyne Care Holdings and local officials were hoping the province would green light the project this fall.

"I know those proponents are anxiously waiting for an update. I have asked them to be patient and a little while longer that update will come," said Manitoba Health Minister Cameron Friesen. "We remain committed to the promise that Manitobans deserve more personal care home beds and we know that seniors in many cases are waiting to be closer to their own communities."

The Pallister government has promised to create 12-hundred personal care home beds in the province by 2025.

In order to get to that goal Friesen said the province needs to engage Manitobans on fresh ideas when it comes to seniors care.

"We have had too much of a black and white binary conversation of whether there should be a personal care home or no personal care home. Instead, we need to be talking about what seniors need and what is appropriate as they move along that continuum toward increased medical care. What does the right care look like for seniors. Sometimes that may mean intensifying their home care, or maybe there are areas of care that we are going to have to articulate between home care and a personal care home and move toward creating more capacity there."

The health minister likes the proposed concept that has been submitted by Boyne Care Holdings, the group spearheading the PCH project in Carman. He says the project is out in front of many other communities.

"They are harnessing ingenuity and best practice to be able to create a campus approach and this is the conversation that we need across Manitoba."

Friesen cited Gardens on Tenth in Altona and their efforts in identifying the needs of some seniors who were being overlooked in the provincial care system, but still needed some assistance in order to maintain an independent lifestyle.

"As we look at other systems across North America we see a significant effort in addressing this kind of care on a longer continuum, it's definitely a conversation that we need to have more of in Manitoba."