Editor:
Your Aug. 18 Letters page perfectly displays the value and necessity of a local paper. The five entries taken together would seem to get in all a Coaster needs to know to make a considered judgment about the Trellis-VCH relationship in regards to Coast seniors care facilities in general and the planned Gibsons Shaw Road one in particular.
Several numbers in the letters stand out for me, starting with the deference to the seriousness of the issue shown in your setting aside the 300-word limit on submissions. I make 45 per cent of 238 “yes” votes to your weekly question to be about 107 people, a number to set beside the 10,000 petition signatures mentioned in the nurses’ union president’s letter.
Mayor Rowe’s dollar figures, especially income from sale of the property and the estimated annual tax revenue, succinctly make the case for a privately run facility – a case seconded by Ms. Carkner’s touching appreciation of how well her mother was looked after at such a facility in Ontario, the monthly cost of which she does not mention. This leads me to note that a very important number missing in all discussions I know of is what the estimated monthly cost per resident will have to be to produce the profit motivating Trellis in the first place.
Many reading Mr. McLatchie’s letter might find fairly insignificant his pointing out that the Silverstone contract “explicitly reduces patient care hours” by 11 minutes per day; but any resident of a care facility or regular visitor of a resident can tell you how much that can matter. My wife has been a Christenson Village resident for five years and more, and I have visited her five to seven days a week over that time, on the basis of which I would contend that the way to get the best in any new facility or work contract is to get it as close to what obtains at Christenson Village as possible.
As staff there will tell you, I can be a royal nuisance in pointing out how things could be better for the residents, my wife in particular, of course, but they also know, I hope, that I think the world of their kindness, competence and hard work. It is hard for me, leaving mere luxuries to one side, to imagine a better place of its kind. Never mind my harping on the problematics of getting one half-paralyzed 77-year-old lady down for a nap when she wants/needs one – a process that takes two caregivers about 11 minutes as it happens (or when it can happen).
David Evans, Sechelt
