Villa Caritas for seniors to open this week

Edmonton's new geriatric psychiatric facility will start taking patients from Alberta Hospital on Wednesday, but a seniors advocate isn't happy with the news.

"I don't think the patients coming from Alberta Hospital Edmonton are going to be in a better facility," Noel Sommerville said, "and I know the patients who are still in the [Edmonton] General Hospital have lost very substantially from this."

Villa Caritas, run by Covenant Health, was originally supposed to house long-term-care patients from the aging Edmonton General Hospital.

But in September 2009, the province announced the 150-bed facility would instead be used for more than 100 geriatric patients now at Alberta Hospital.

Since then, the opening has been delayed and costs have gone up to make changes to accommodate psychiatric patients. The province says the facility will increase access to geriatric mental health services in Edmonton by 44 beds.