Seniors-care home lays off entire staff

Facility blames low health authority funding

A seniors-care home on Vancouver Island is laying off its entire staff effective Sept. 30 thanks to what the facility’s operator calls years of chronic underfunding by the region’s health authority.

More than 150 employees at Wexford Creek Care Home in Nanaimo, including nurses and care aides, received pink slips on Friday.

The facility has a 150-resident capacity with services ranging from complex care to private, assisted living. A statement from the centre’s operator, Edmonton-based Good Samaritan Society, says the care home reported $2.6 million in losses over the past eight years.

The statement says Wexford Creek will be sold to an unnamed third party, which will be responsible for hiring its own workers, and that staffing changes would not affect residents’ quality of care.

Two years ago, the same facility terminated 122 positions, which Shawn Terlson, Good Samaritan Society president and CEO, said was due to similar funding concerns from the Island Health Authority.

Terlson wrote at the time in a memo to staff that future job opportunities would be offered with “significantly reduced compensation.”

ARLEN REDEKOP/PNG Andrea Coutu says she is concerned that proposed funding cuts to Vancouver schools will harm the education of her two children, who have special needs.