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Canwest News Service
Hundreds of seniors are caught in the middle of a dispute between care-home owners and contractors hired to look after the residents.
Last week, hundreds of unionized staff at three B.C. nursing homes were stunned to hear from their employer, Abbey Therapeutic Services of Chilliwack, that it was walking away from its contracts.
Abbey said it couldn't afford to pay its employees after Nov. 15.
Retirement Concepts, which owns the three facilities and has a contract with Abbey to provide staff, has stepped in to fill the void.
It will pay Abbey's workers until it can solve the dispute with Abbey.
"This is the fourth time that the care aides have been laid off in four years," said Donna Mathewes, who was visiting her wheelchair-bound mother Dorothy in Dufferin Care Centre in Coquitlam on Sunday.
"Every two or three years they lay them off and then hire brand new care- aides again," she said.
"It's extremely disruptive for my mother to be getting a whole new set of nurses. It takes a year to get to know her well," said Mathewes.
A senior employee with Fraser Health Authority, which funds 128 of the 153 beds at Dufferin, said she has made unscheduled inspections of the facility.
"Having walked through the facility, myself, over the weekend I am not concerned about the quality of care being provided at this point," said Heather Cook, Fraser Health's executive director of seniors' care facilities.
"The correct number of staff have been working all weekend."
Cook said many of the staff she spoke to at Dufferin on the weekend have been at the facility for five years or longer and were looking forward to staying there.
Adrian Dix, the NDP's health critic, blamed the turmoil on the government allowing health-care companies to let staff go when a new company wins a new contract to provide health-care services.
That is not allowed in other industries, said Dix, the MLA for Vancouver- Kingsway.
"None of these workers works for the care-home owner, they work for the subcontractor," he told The Province.
"There's no successorship rights. Whenever Retirement Concepts doesn't like its subcontractor's costs, they flip the subcontractor.
"Then the union has to reorganize and a whole bunch of new people get hired, " said Dix. Cook could not confirm Sunday how many times wholesale staff changes have occurred at Dufferin.
More than three hundred Abbey staff members were affected at Dufferin and two nursing homes on Vancouver Island – Beacon Hill Villa and Nanaimo Seniors Village – were affected by the sudden turn of events.
Retirement Concepts spokesman Chris Freimond said the company has a contract with Abbey and will have its lawyers look into the situation Monday.
A spokesperson for Abbey, which has been in business since 1994, said a statement on the matter would be available Monday.
