Frustration was the feeling expressed recently by Wawota Save Our Beds Committee (SOBC) member Ken Wilson when speaking about attempts to have further meetings with the board of Sun Country Health Region.
"The minister [Don McMorris] had said he wanted our two boards to meet and come to some kind of understanding," Wilson said. "Every time we try and make a meeting time with the board though, we end up getting nowhere."
The Wawota Save Our Beds Committee was an outgrowth of the decision by Sun Country Health Region to cut five long-term care beds from the Deer View Lodge facility in Wawota.
Announced in late May of last year, the committee has since worked tirelessly to convince the Sun Country board to reverse its decision.
"We have seniors waiting to get into beds in the home here [in Wawota]," Wilson said. "To cut beds from a place with what is already a long waiting list doesn't make any sense to us, and we want the board to reconsider their position."
When the bed closures were initially announced, the reason for the closures were stated as both a cost savings move made necessary by a budget shortfall, as well as a perceived infection risk that the wing which was closed posed to the remainder of the facility.
It was estimated that the bed closures would lead to an annual savings in the area of $100,000 for the health region.
"We still have issues with the reason they told us the beds were closed," Wilson said. "But we can't advance the discussion any further unless the Sun Country board meets with us."
Members of SOBC have been organizing an effort to call individual members of the Sun Country board.
"We had a chance to meet with Sharon Bauche, the chair of the board, back around Christmas," Wilson said. "She was coming to Deer View Lodge with some board members on a holiday visit, and we managed to speak with her about having another meeting."
"She essentially said that another meeting would be a waste of time," Wilson said. "That the decision was made, and nothing had changed."
Speaking with Sharon Bauche later, Bauche emphatically denied that she had said any such thing.
"I most certainly did not say that," Bauche said. "I never told anyone that it [a meeting between Sun Country and SOBC] would be a waste of time."
"We actually have it scheduled for us to speak about them this coming meeting," Bauche said. "They have been calling all of our members, one by one, and we have it on the agenda to discuss those calls."
Members of the SOBC have stated that, since the resignation of Hal Schmidt and the firing of former Sun Country CEO Cal Tant, there is more than enough space for the decision to close the five Wawota-based beds to be reconsidered.
