VVCmatters.ca

Please listen to the announcement from Premier Prentice when he assures the residents and their families that Michener Centre will not close and they will be allowed to live out their autumn years in their loving caring community of Michener.

Hats off to the very dedicated Friends of Michener Centre on convincing Premier Prentice to halt the closure of Michener Centre. Any of the Michener residents who have already transitioned out will have the ability to return to live their lives out at the Centre. This is a very happy story and shows what can happen when people and communities come together to support a cause!

Please watch and share! Very heart breaking!

Five residents, who were forced to move from their Home at Michener Centre in Red Deer, have died since their transition from the facility. According to page 3 of the Valley View Centre Transition Steering Committee Recommendation report: "There is reasonable fear that a move of this nature will have a detrimental effect on them. Life changes on this scale, such as moving homes, are proven to have an impact on health and wellbeing." Very sad!

Anna Chunga shared a link via Moose Jaw Times Herald. 23 hours ago Edited Interesting commentary - I believe that we all share the reporter's concern that the government does owe a huge responsibility to to the vulnerable people who currently call VVC their Home and their families. After all, they are forcing them to move from the only Home that many have known for an average of 41.5 years (page 9 of the TSC Recommendation Report). The person who has resided there the least... amount of time according to the report is 11 years. The average age of the residents is 58.9 years. No doubt that is a long time to be calling somewhere Home so transitioning them into community services could prove to be quite challenging. Page 3 of the TSC report states: "There is reasonable fear that a move of this nature will have a detrimental effect on them. Life changes on this scale, such as moving homes, are proven to have an impact on health and wellbeing." According to the Recommendation report (page 5): "several commitments have been made to the families. They have been promised that, where possible, quality of care will be maintained or improved. Families have been told that the individual residents will drive the transition process and resources will be put in place based on individual need. Families have been assured that the Government of Saskatchewan will still run some of the replacement services. And the families have been told that when possible residents will have access to the same staff. The goal of everyone involved is to honour those commitments." Perhaps the reporter missed this info when reviewing the Transition Recommendation report when he commented that the gov't does not owe any responsibility to the workers...yes you are correct....it is owed to the family to live up to the commitments that they were assured by the gov't. I am not sure that this reporter also realizes there is going to be a huge hit to the economy of Moose Jaw when $1.8 million/month in payroll, which is recirculated approx 25x within the economy, is gone. Perhaps he is missing the point that VVC is one of the largest employers in MJ and as a result many of the workers may be forced to move out of MJ to find enough decent paying jobs. As a tax payer in MJ this is hugely concerning to me as it should be to all elected officials in MJ. http://www.socialservices.gov.sk.ca/VVC-tsc...

One can only hope that the employees and residents wont be forgotten, and that the government really does have an action plan in place to help the staff find new work, and help residents find new homes. As a community, our responsibility is to ensure we don’t lose these people. These are our friends, our neighbours, our colleagues. They make a positive impact on Moose Jaw, and it would be a disservice to our city to lose them. Moose Jaw is our home, and we need to take contro...l. We decide if we will allow the closing of Valley View Centre to impact our community negatively. We have an obligation to not sit back, but take control and demand to see these promised plans made by the Saskatchewan government come to be. I am anxious to see the action the government is willing to take to help our people, and so should you. We all have accountability and the closing of Valley View Centre is all of our problems. Because, from my perspective, it seems like these people are already forgotten, and that is unacceptable in my eyes. See more