Piironen clarifies Wales Home concerns
Recently the Record received an anonymous letter claiming to be from a group concerned about the future of the Wales Home. Specifically, the letter raised concerns about the new agreement with the CIUSSS de l’estrie – CHUS that makes the home’s long-term care facility (CHSLD) a part of the public health network, stating that the administration of the home has given up control in a way that will result in ballooning deficits and, consequently, a loss of jobs.
In brief, the letter’s writer argues that staffing increased and occupancy went down after the agreement was signed, with the home’s ability to fill new beds taken out of the administrations hands. This combination of factors, mixed with the fact that the home only gets half the funding for an empty bed, suggested to the letter writer that the home is headed for disaster.
Asked about the issues raised in the letter, Brendalee Piironen, Executive Director of the Wales Home, said that many of the statements made by the writer are either misleading or just false.
“There is no real issue here,” Piironen said encouraging both the home’s staff and the wider community not to be
writer are either misleading or just false.
“There is no real issue here,” Piironen said encouraging both the home’s staff and the wider community not to be concerned about the adjustment period that the home and the healthcare network are currently going through.
“We don’t have a budget deficit” the Executive Director began, pointing out that the home’s previous financial challenges were wiped out by the agreement with the Provincial Government last year.
On the question about unbalanced staffing, Piironen said that the home did not significantly increase its staff in the last year.
“We added an extra head nurse, but we didn’t increase the staffing because we already had good staffing before,” she said.
Piironen acknowledged that the home currently has some empty beds in its CHSLD, and confirmed that an empty bed only receives half funding, but she explained that the vacancies are the result of seven residents having recently reached the natural end of their lives over a very short period of time.
“We don’t usually have seven people die in two weeks,” the Executive Director said, explaining that four of those spaces have already been filled with new admissions.
On the question of whether or not the CHSLD maintains control over its admissions, Piironen explained that there is a evaluation process that is carried out by the CIUSSS de l’estrie – CHUS.
“The way that it works is that anybody who is receiving government money for their beds has to go through an access mechanism. They confirm that a person meets the criteria for the CHSLD,” the Executive Director said, explaining that the only reason someone would be rejected is if their profile indicated that they do not need long-term care. “Let’s say that somebody calls us and they want to admit their mom to long-term care, we submit the request to the access mechanism and then they check it. Nobody is refused unless they don’t meet the criteria.”
Piironen expressed, several times in the conversation, what a good relationship is forming between the CIUSSS and the Wales Home.
“I feel very positive about the partnership that we are developing with the CHUS, but it is a learning curve for them as well as for us,” the Executive Director said.
Piironen did say that there have been challenges to overcome within the new agreement, pointing out that the CIUSSS social workers needed to be familiarized with the fact that there was a new home within their network, but she explained that the healthcare institution has been very open and cooperative in helping to sort these issues out. Following what she called a “very positive meeting” with CIUSSS administrators at the end of April, the Executive Director said she feels things are on the right track.