Wales home seeking long-term support for long-term care

While celebrating the groundbreaking for phase one of the home’s new expansion, Wales Home Executive Director Brendalee Piironen and executive committee President Glenn Brock emphasized that the ongoing work and improvement of the Eastern Townships most well-known Anglophone seniors’ home will not be able to continue without dedicated financial support from the provincial government. Speaking specifically with regard to the plans to increase the capacity of the home’s long-term care facilities (CHSLD) in phase two of the expansion, Piironen said that the success of the project depends on not just a one-time grant for construction, but also subsidization over a longer period.

“The Wales Home saves the government about $8 million per year because we are operating this long term care facility,” Piironen said, explaining that the CHSLD section of the home runs with a constant operational deficit that has to be bailed out using funds raised by the foundation. “We’re not asking for $8 million; we’re asking for a very reasonable amount so we can stop operating in a deficit and increase staffing.”

“It’s not just subsidization of the existing beds,” added Brock. “We want to create an expansion of thirty beds because we’re just full up all the time and the need for such care is going increase substantially over the next ten years.”

The executive committee President pointed out that in a centre that already runs on a constant deficit; an expansion without added support would only mean a bigger loss year after year. That, in turn, would put a greater burden on the Wales Home Foundation while also putting the home into a position where it might have to think about making cuts in order to help maintain care.

“We need both (the grant and the subsidy) at the same time,” Brock said.

“There’s only a handful (of CHSLDS) in Quebec that receive no government funding, and we’re one of them,” Piironen continued. “We want to be the facility offering optimal care, but we need the manpower to be able to do that, and that means more money.”

The Executive Director argued that the Provincial Government sends the home mixed messages by, on the one hand, praising the work that is being done at the home while, on the other hand, forcing the administration to meet a strict set of guidelines without offering anything in return.

“We have to comply with all government standards and become accredited through the government, but receive no money for it,” Piironen said, pointing out that the year-long accreditation process costs the nonprofit organization $100,000 once every five years. Though the cost is not recurrent, the executive director also highlighted the fact that the government-mandated division of the home into two separate legal entities in 2011 cost more than $40,000 in legal fees.

In reflecting on the creation of the Wales Home Foundation in 1991 as a part of Saturday’s celebrations, former Executive Director Rod Mciver mentioned having first tried and failed to secure government subsidization for the home. Piironen shared that she’d had no sense that the fight for support had been so long, but said that little to no progress has been made in the years since.

Asked about the roadblocks to subsidization, Piironen said that the most recent explanation she was given was that the home needed a particular form of permit in order to receive government funding, and that such a permit had not been granted in the region since 1974.

Richmond MNA Karine Vallières clarified, stating that because the Wales home is a private institution, the only way it can receive government funding is if the public system has overflow which needs to be contracted out.

“What the Wales home is asking for is financial assistance per person housed in the CHSLD,” Vallières said. “There has not been a CHSLD licensed since the 1970s in the Estrie because the existing system is seen as sufficient for the waiting lists in the public system.”

The MNA said that she has been working with the home for close to a year now to try to find a solution and that the working group is currently waiting to hear back on possible options from the provincial health ministry.

“We are not holding meetings for nothing,” Vallières said. “What I hope is for a rapid answer from the health ministry one way or the other. Whether it is yes or no, at least we will know where we sit. I’m doing everything I can, but it is not an easy file.”

In the meantime, work will be going ahead on the first phase of the expansion of the Wales Home, and the Executive Director and executive committee President hope to see the second phase follow shortly thereafter.

“It is absolutely necessary that we obtain this funding for the benefit of the English speaking population of the Eastern Townships,” Brock said, arguing that the Wales Home is one of a very small group of homes able to offer Anglophone seniors care in their own cultural and linguistic environment.

“We just want to receive what we feel we deserve,” Piironen added.