Gibsons Mayor Wayne Rowe says councillors who were at a meeting with new Health Minister Adrian Dix at the recent Union of BC Municipalities convention came away with the impression the NDP government will not support a deal between the Town and Trellis Seniors Services for a long-term care facility.
Trellis is planning to purchase a Town-owned lot beside Christenson Village on Shaw Road for the facility it’s under contract with Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH) to build and operate at a price of $2.24 million.
Rowe made the comments in response to a letter from the District of Sechelt about its Age Friendly Community Plan, which spoke of the critical shortage of long-term care beds.
“I think the Town of Gibsons is really trying to do its part to deal with this,” Rowe said, going on to mention the meeting between Dix, councillors Silas White and Jeremy Valeriote, and MLA Nicholas Simons.
“The report I’ve had back is that we were not encouraged by the minister, in terms of what we are proposing,” Rowe said. “Although it’s not a meeting where any decisions were being made, we certainly came away from there feeling that we may not get the support we would like to have for this project.”
Rowe said the Town has committed to issue a building permit within 60 days of receiving an application from Trellis.
“We could have this facility in place by early 2019. Right now we have patients occupying million-dollar beds in the hospital that are needed for acute care, when they could be in $200,000 beds in single room occupancy in a LEED gold standard building,” he said.
“I really have to ask whose interests are being protected here? Who speaks for the patients? I’m concerned that politics is going to get in the way of looking after our seniors.”
The contract between VCH and Trellis originally called for the facility, which would replace Shorncliffe and Totem Lodge, to be built in Sechelt. VCH has not said publicly if it will accept an amendment to the contract.
