A petition circulating through change.org is urging Island Health to reconsider moving seniors from outside the community into Ucluelet’s Forest Glen Seniors independent/assisted living facility while there is a waitlist of locals in need of the spaces.
The petition, titled ‘Allow Forest Glen to Prioritize Resident Seniors For Housing Vacancies’ and launched by Susan Lee suggests Forest Glen was built by locals specifically to accommodate residents of the community.
The facility has 10 apartments and is managed by a volunteer board and the non-profit Sea View Seniors Housing Society, according to the petition, which notes that Island Health has a contract to provide three assisted living suites to qualified seniors.
“Their mandate is to provide housing for local seniors, both those requiring Assisted Living and those who can live independently but would benefit from safe and secure subsidized housing. Without the provision of this housing many seniors are faced with the choice of leaving a community of family and long-time friends,” it reads. “Up to now, the Board was able to maintain a policy of meeting the needs of local seniors. If a local senior requiring Assisted Living had not been identified when a vacancy occurred, the Society could offer the suite to a senior in Ucluelet and surrounding area, provided the next available vacancy reverts back to an assisted-living unit.”
It adds that there is currently a waitlist of seniors with a variety of needs as well as connections to the community.
“The practice that has for years given priority to local residents, is now being challenged by (Island Health). Forest Glen is now being told to accept placement of Assisted Living clients from anywhere on Vancouver Island, before being able to offer the vacant suite to a local Independent Living client,” it reads. “One of the 3 assisted-living units is currently available at Forest Glen. Because there is no identified local senior requiring an Assisted Living placement, (Island Health) is insisting that Forest Glen accept Assisted Living clients from outside of the local area.”
It suggests that moving seniors in from out of town could lead to them becoming isolated without local ties while leaving local residents in the lurch.
“Moving seniors, that require assistance to live on their own, from other communities to Ucluelet is problematic because Ucluelet has limited medical services, extremely limited public transit and is isolated on the West Coast,” it reads. “Ucluelet has one highway in or out, and few of the services many come to expect in areas closer to urban centres.”
It adds that the site is not staffed over weekends and holidays.
“This is why support of family and friends is crucial for safe care of the Assisted Living clients,” it reads. “By insisting that the suite be held empty until an appropriate Assisted living client from elsewhere on Vancouver Island can be found, (Island Health) is taking away from a resource that the community is already too short of!”
Ucluelet mayor Marilyn McEwen told the Westerly News that she signed the petition as she believes there are too few rooms available at Forest Glen as it is without spots being lost to out of towners.
“I feel that any vacancies should be prioritized for local residents,” she said, adding that providing opportunities for West Coast seniors to age in place is “super important.”
“It’s one of our council priorities actually, to pursue avenues to allow that to happen. What Island Health is proposing seems counterintuitive to that.”
She also agreed with the petition’s point that seniors coming in from out of town will not have community connections.
“It’s not going to really help them because they’ll have no family or friends here as a support system, whereas local residents would have family and friends in town here to support them,” she said.
She clarified that she signed the petition on behalf of herself and not the town’s council, but added council could discuss the issue, but likely wouldn’t have much authority.
“We can certainly talk about it. I don’t know how much pull we would have with Island Health. They are their own entity as we found out when it came to building our new medical clinic; that was all them, we had no participation in that whatsoever,” she said. “But, it’s certainly worth discussing amongst ourselves to see if there’s maybe a letter we could write or something to state our point, assuming all five of us are on the same page with this.”
She added the petition helped bring the issue to the forefront of community discourse.
“I’m hoping that if enough people sign the petition that they will reconsider the decision, but it’s great to get information out to our residents as to what’s happening within our town. Petitions are one way of doing that,” she said.
The petition had reached 402 signatures as of the evening of Oct. 24.
The Westerly News reached out to Island Health for comment and a spokesperson explained in an email that the health authority is “in a caretaker mode” and is limited to critical health and public safety information during the provincial election period.
“While we are limited in the depth of commentary we can provide, we are able to offer the following facts as background context: In general, operators of publicly funded assisted living beds in B.C. are required to follow provincial guidelines and policies for client placement and access to those beds,” the email reads.
The spokesperson added that more information on the process around assessment and access to assisted living can be found at www.islandhealth.ca and in the Assisted Living Handbook for Operators available at www2.gov.bc.ca.