Mountain View Seniors' Housing (MVSH) residents will not be negatively impacted by the termination of contracts with Alberta Health Services (AHS), says chairman Bruce Beattie.
Last week MVSH, which operates seniors' housing facilities in the region, announced that it has given AHS 12 months' notice that it was terminating contracts at all sites.
Under the change, health-care delivery would still occur at each MVSH site, but would be provided by AHS or a third-party provider, not by MVSH as is currently the case, he said.
The MVSH board remains committed to the lodge residents, he said.
“We hope there would be no impact on our residents whatsoever,” said Beattie, who is also Mountain View County reeve. “To the residents themselves there would be no change in terms of residency.
“It’s really about us trying to be fair to our residents and our taxpayers. We currently fund the housing portion through our requisition, so we subsidize the low income housing to provide those places for people in our county.
“Some of that requisition currently goes towards funding some of the health care that is supposed to be covered by AHS.”
The current AHS-MVSH housing contract requires 12 months' notice to terminate the contacts. The notice has now been given.
Concerns about funding have been ongoing for some time, he said.
“At seniors' housing we have been looking for a number of years at our issues around dealing with AHS,” he said. “They have a different funding model depending on where you are in the province.
“If you are within a major municipality like Edmonton or Calgary, the funding is actually higher than for what we provide.”
Regarding staff funding, he said, “We’ve been asked to achieve market rates for our staff across our organization, and we just believe that AHS is funding us to the level that we believe they should. We are very concerned about the care that we are able to deliver to our residents.
“AHS says you have so many hours that you can allocate to a resident and we don’t think they are allocating sufficient hours and we have been subsidizing that because we want to provide the best quality care that we can.”
Sam Smalldon, CAO of MVSH, says there are a number of reasons the board has decided to terminate the contracts.
“The board considered issues related to AHS differing policies and funding levels between AHA Calgary and Central Zones for the same care and services for seniors,” said Smalldon.
“AHS funding has been inadequate to provide the level of quality care MVSH believes in, requiring ongoing support through municipal requisitions. The board has discussed and questioned involvement in delivery of health care for a number of years.
“The board contends health care is a provincial and AHS responsibility, not municipal taxpayers'.”
The board met with AHS officials last year to discuss funding concerns but no resolution was achieved, he said.
Chairman Beattie said dealing with different zones creates numerous difficulties.
“We’ve been trying to have that sorted out with no success,” said Beattie. “It’s frustrating to our organization and our board.”
A transition team has been set up to handle the change of contracts, he said.
“It takes a year and AHS could actually extend that for an additional year,” he said. “So potentially it could be two years before there is the change.”
The MVSH board is scheduled to meet with AHS officials regarding the notice to terminate the contacts, he said.
“We are meeting on the 23rd in Olds,” he said. “We will be sitting down with them and explaining our situation so they clearly understand why we’ve come to this decision.
“I think as a board we are open to discussion with them to find ways we can continue. We believe our model is the best one in that we provide both housing and health care in a seamless process.
“You don’t have two organizations operating in one building and we think that a better model, but it has to be funded adequately and we don’t believe it should be up to the municipalities to fund that.”
Asked if AHS came back with additional funding for MVSH would that change the situation, he replied, “I think it is something that we would certainly consider. I wouldn’t rule it out. I can’t speak for the board on that. We’d have to see what AHS came back with and what we might be able to achieve.
“The best outcome, from my perspective, would be for Alberta Health to fund to the level that we think is appropriate and is fair. There are hurdles to be overcome.”
Regardless of the current situation, MVSH remains committed to its residents, he said.
“We aren’t going anywhere,” he said. “We will absolutely maintain our lodge in Sundre and our other lodges in our other communities.”
Meanwhile, the MVSH board recently received and reviewed a mediator’s report and recommendations from the enhanced mediation process, said Smalldon.
“Although the board does not agree with many of the recommendations, especially some have a potential negative impact on operations and the ability to maintain quality care and services for residents, the board has accepted the report and recommendations for staff at the Sundre Seniors’ Supporting Living site.”
The board remains committed to supporting workers in all MVSH facilities, he said.
“A top priority for the board is to maintain good relations and support of our staff and the board will continue to strive to maintain fairness and equity amongst our staff as well as to work for wage and benefit parity for all our staff,” he said.
“The board will do its best to protect employment of all staff as the transition planning process with AHS continues.”
A call to AHS seeking comment was not immediately returned.
