The company behind the proposed Silverstone Care Centre expects to file zoning and other applications with the District of Sechelt in the coming weeks.
Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH) announced June 1 that it planned to close Shorncliffe and Totem Lodge in Sechelt, and enter into a contract with Trellis Seniors Services to provide long-term care beds.
Trellis president Mary McDougall told Coast Reporter this week that the company was not involved in the decision to close the two older facilities.
“Many communities have gone out across the province requesting additional services, and that’s what we were bidding to compete on with other proponents,” she said. “How Vancouver Coastal [Health] is managing where that extra bed capacity is coming from is something that we weren’t involved in, or a part of. We’ve really just been an observer.”
McDougall also said Trellis stayed in the background in the weeks following the announcement to avoid public confusion around decisions being made by VCH, and the company’s project.
Trellis has an agreement to purchase part of the land currently held by Sawarne Lumber in the area between Derby Road and the Silverstone Heights subdivision. It needs to be subdivided before Trellis can start moving ahead with rezoning and development applications. McDougall said they hope to get to that stage in September.
McDougall also said as that phase of the project gets closer, the public can expect to hear more from the Trellis team as part of the District of Sechelt approval process and at an event later in the fall.
Silverstone is one of three new care centres Trellis is building under contracts with VCH, which would double the number of facilities the company owns and operates. “When you think about planning out a transition over three years, it’s not really a daunting prospect. The team collectively has extensive experience in building, opening and operating residential care facilities … We’ve walked the path enough times to know how to do it,” McDougall said.
But the plan continues to face opposition from unions, organizations like the seniors group COSCO, and Powell River-Sunshine Coast MLA Nicholas Simons. Simons now has more than 1,600 signatures on a petition, and the BC Nurses Union (BCNU) has launched an online petition.
“I think this plan can and should be stopped, and that the Ministry of Health [should] come and talk to the community to find a solution we can support,” Simons said.
McDougall has years of experience in long-term care, and some opponents have been bringing forward parts of that history as arguments against the Trellis project, including a 2005 Labour Relations Board ruling against the company running Nanaimo Seniors Village, of which McDougall was CEO at the time, and a conflict of interest allegation from 2013, when she was on the board of the Provincial Health Services Authority.
“I don’t feel that at any time I’ve ever acted with anything other than the highest level of integrity and professionalism,” she said. “My chartered accountant background provides a base of professional ethics that’s of a very high standard on how to operate, and I don’t feel I’ve ever deviated from that.”
Meanwhile, VCH chair Kip Woodward is defending the plan to close Shorncliffe and Totem in a letter to the editor in Coast Reporter this week. One of the points in his letter is that “quality of care will not be compromised. VCH will make sure of that. Silverstone will also be a unionized facility, giving staff continuity and support.”
McDougall said whether employees at Silverstone are unionized will be up to the workers to decide, through the usual process of certification under the labour code. She also said Trellis is interested in bringing employees from the VCH facilities on board because of their skills and experience, but isn’t guaranteeing anyone a job.
“Silverstone Care Centre will need about 200 workers,” she said. “We are committed to interviewing and hoping to attract anyone who’s passionate about seniors care, who is interested in serving seniors in this way, and we are very hopeful that the people at the sites that are closing would be interested.”
Kath-Ann Terrett, BCNU’s coast mountain region chair, said at this point the union hasn’t been invited to participate in discussions about the transition.
The Hospital Employees Union (HEU) said it is talking with VCH about issues tied to the closures, but can’t divulge details. “From our perspective, that’s not the real question here,” said HEU’s Jennifer Whiteside. “The real question here is, in this circumstance it’s our view that the health authority needs to ensure that any new facility that’s providing long-term care services should be publicly operated, regardless of who the developer is.”
