A group opposed to closing publicly owned and operated long-term care facilities on the Sunshine Coast in favour of a contract with a private provider says it’s dismayed by how the new provincial government is handling the issue.
Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH) announced in June 2016 that it had signed a deal with Trellis Seniors Services to build a new facility in Sechelt, and once it was complete VCH would close Shorncliffe and Totem Lodge.
The proposed Silverstone Care Centre needed approvals from the District of Sechelt which, to date, have not gone forward. Earlier this year, the Town of Gibsons announced it had agreed to sell Trellis land on Shaw Road to build the facility.
Since then there’s been little movement on either proposal and few public comments from either Trellis or VCH about which option, if any, will go ahead.
In a Dec. 4 letter to Health Minister Adrian Dix, copied to media, Protect Public Health Care – Sunshine Coast (PPHC) says, “While we appreciate that the implementation of new policies is a complex and cumbersome process, we are dismayed by developments so far. The exclusion of stakeholders from the decision-making process continues.”
It goes on to claim that 18 months after the VCH-Trellis deal was first announced, and five months after the NDP minority government took power, “there are strong indications that your ministry is negotiating with Vancouver Coastal Health and Trellis about establishing a public-private partnership.
“To state our position categorically, public-private partnership is just another name for privatization... Our community has spoken clearly in favour of public care and will regard the continued involvement of Trellis as a betrayal of our interests.”
Gibsons Mayor Wayne Rowe said in October that councillors came away from a meeting with Dix at the Union of BC Municipalities (UBCM) convention “feeling that we may not get the support we would like to have for this project.”
Sechelt councillors also met with Dix at UBCM, and Mayor Bruce Milne said at a council meeting just afterwards that it was positive and very welcoming, and a bit later added that “they’re [the NDP] finding that there’s lots of things they can’t do in government that they thought they could do in opposition, and they are constrained by the windows, and contracts, and decisions that were made before they ended up there.”
Milne told Coast Reporter after that Oct. 9 council meeting, “The minister knows the Sunshine Coast file very, very well. Of course, we discussed VCH and seniors care on the Coast and there was some, although not much, specific mention of Trellis and their proposal.”
Coast Reporter has made several requests since the UBCM meeting for comment from, or an interview with, Dix on the future of long-term care on the Sunshine Coast. Powell River-Sunshine Coast MLA Nicholas Simons said he’s aware that discussions involving all interested parties are ongoing, and the focus is on addressing the need for more long-term care beds and protections. “I don’t think any conclusions have been reached,” he said. “We need the beds and we need to protect the workers and I’m hoping that’s the result we get.”
