Like the hospital move on Thursday, Sunday’s move into Peace Villa – Fort St. John’s newest residential care facility – was ahead of schedule.
“It went very well,” said Peace Villa Residential Care Manager Dave Callaghan. “We moved from the North Peace Care Centre to the Peace Villa – we moved 87 residents between 8:15 and about 10:30 in the morning – so it was very quick.”
He noted that while there are still a couple of pieces of equipment they’re trying to track down and place in the proper location, the move went “very well.”
This move was scheduled to take six hours.
“We were fairly confident it wouldn’t take until 2:30,” said Callaghan.
In addition to moving 87 residents from the North Peace Care Centre on Sunday, the Peace Villa also welcomed 30 residents from the South Peace yesterday.
Health Services Administrator for the South Peace Jaret Clay said that 28 people moved from Peace River Haven in Pouce Coupe and two from the Rotary Manor.
“Basically, when people are moving over, it’s all based on bed availability,” said Clay. “People who didn’t want to come to (Peace Villa) get put on an expedited list to go back down to Dawson Creek because it is a bed for a bed so there wasn’t much of an option.”
He noted that there are eight people who just moved to Fort St. John who are on the list to head to Rotary Manor in Dawson Creek.
“We’ve spent the better part of the last six months trying to ensure that we had people prearranged so that the fewest number of people that didn’t want to come up to Fort St. John, who prefer to be in Dawson Creek, did so,” said Clay.
He said that Peace River Haven in Pouce Coupe is not scheduled to reopen to residents.
“Northern Health is taking advantage of the opportunity to see what they would maybe do with Peace River Haven and that process will take awhile to sort out as to what the possibilities are for the Peace River Haven,” he said.
Though eight residents may soon be on their way back to Dawson Creek, the rest of the more than 100 new residents are learning their way around their new digs.
“We had two residents (on Sunday) moved by ambulance,” said Callaghan. “While the other 85 residents were moved by bus.”
He noted that none of the residents moving within Fort St. John had families move them.
From the South Peace, two were moved by ambulance, five moved by their families and 21 moved by bus.
Callaghan noted that the new facility has all private rooms “which, of course, increases privacy and dignity.”
“I did go around to all of the areas and did speak to several residents and they did seem to be settling in quite well,” said Callaghan.
He noted that they had to change the room of one resident post arrival because of a minor toilet placement issue.
“So far it’s been very positive,” said Callaghan. “There’s lots of family around the building, lots of smiles, lots of congratulations and lots of people talking about how they like their new rooms.”
