A large contingent came out to Grand Forks’ library last Thursday to express frustration at Interior Health’s (IH) decision not to award Broadacres Care Facility a residential care bed contract.
As a result of that support, Rod Gustafson, the proprietor of Broadacres, has decided to hold back on returning his caregiver’s license, which was due at the end of April.
The contract for the 40 beds was given to Golden Life Management, a company out of Cranbrook, B.C.
The group of residents came to the decision to send a letter to Interior Health, as well as MLA John Slater, Premier Christy Clark, B.C. NDP leader Adrian Dix and local media. It asks IH, on behalf of the residents of the Boundary, for an exception to extend Gustafson’s caregiver licence for another six months, so that Gustafson can find a use for the facility.
The supporters for Broadacres are also in the midst of planning a meeting with the Ministry of Health, which could happen before the middle of May if the plans work out.
Gustafson said that though he thinks it’s too late to do anything, he is still trying to have a dialogue with IH.
“Interior Health could use that facility for a dementia unit; all kinds of things, a brain injury program,” Gustafson said, adding that he would even be content with leasing the facility to IH, stepping back and letting the health authority operate it.
Linda Schilling moderated the meeting and despite efforts to keep it moving briskly, the abundance of questions and concerns over the facility took the meeting well past the library’s closing time of 8 p.m.
Gustafson said the facility would have been ready to house those who needed care: however, because Gustafson didn’t get the funding, he was supposed to submit his license this past weekend.
The license that he had was for 14 beds, but because IH awarded the total 40 beds to another facility, it has asked for the license to be rescinded.
“As of the end of the month I have to surrender my license back to Interior Health because I haven’t had any clients in there for one year,” he said at the meeting.
“That’s part of the act. Then if I want to reapply then I have to go through the whole process of reapplying for a new license.”
Gustafson said that he would have needed to have at least three people stay at his facility during the 12-month period to be able to keep his license and those people would have to be referred to him by a doctor.
He said that he would have been content even with getting the temporary beds that will now be located in soon-to-be-renovated hospital units until the new care facility is finished.
As it stands though, Gustafson said that he’d now invested somewhere around $1.3 million into the facility and is looking into other options, such as a corrections institute or a rehab facility.
Though regional district representatives couldn’t be there, or the mayor, Coun. Gene Robert attended the meeting and assured the crowd that he would bring his observations of the meeting to council.
There will be another meeting, yet to be announced, that will take place at the Seniors Centre the week of May 8.