Why Kill a 'Life Saving' Program?
Closing Chimo Achievement Centre for people with serious disabilities will cost lives and dollars.
Fraser Health's CEO Dr. Nigel Murray
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Why Pick on People with Disabilities?
They have been abused twice by BC government action, and inaction.
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Welcome to Leaner, Meaner, BC Health System
As tough cuts are ordered, opposition accuses Libs of misleading voters.
"This program saved my life. If it's shutdown, I'm going to go downhill fast." -- Lawrence Bibby, Chimo Achievement Centre client
What do you do with a healthcare program that helps people with serious disabilities like multiple sclerosis stay out of hospital or long-term care and instead lead independent lives -- while saving taxpayers millions of dollars?
Any thoughtful analysis would conclude that this kind of innovative program should be a model for the province and be expanded.
But if you are the Fraser Health Authority, you simply shut down the program without even evaluating it, without talking to the administrator or staff or clients, all to save a whopping $165,000 a year.
That amount is less than half the $466,000 salary paid to Fraser Health's CEO -- Dr. Nigel Murray -- and a pittance in the Authority's $2.48 billion budget. But it actually pays for several staff to help keep 45 clients healthy and functioning.
Go home and good luck
Nevertheless, on January 31, the Chimo Achievement Centre in Coquitlam will lock its doors and its clients will be told to stay home and watch television, with a bit more home care added to keep them there.
Or they can visit a seniors centre for any activities despite the fact that most of them are far too young to be seniors and those centres don't have exercise programs for people in wheelchairs like Lawrence Bibby, who has MS.
I've known Lawrence for 35 years and when told me what was going on, I couldn't believe it. But it is tragically true.
Lawrence actually moved from Vancouver to be in the area and take advantage of the Chimo program -- which he says literally saved his life.
Elizabeth Oliveira is another Chimo client who knows it saves money.
"Before Chimo I used to be really sick in hospital three or four times a year -- I haven't been in hospital for two years," said Oliveira, a 34-year-old who has muscular dystrophy, uses a trachea ventilator and gets help with breathing exercises.
But that's not all. Chimo gives both her and her mother much more.
"It makes me feel good about myself despite my limitations," she says. "My mother needs one day a week not to worry about me."
[You can hear from other Chimo clients speaking about the cutbacks by viewing this video.]
'They will deteriorate'
Chimo's administrator Arlene Hartley-Lewchuk is overwhelmingly worried about what will happen to her clients, despite her own disappearing job.
"We're not seeing any suitable placements for our clients -- there is nowhere for them to go but home," she said in an interview. "Physically their muscle tone is going to deteriorate. They won't have the ability or confidence to go out in their communities."
"But the big thing is they will lose their ability to live at home," Hartley-Lewchuk said. "There will be increased falls, which means hospital stays."
Amazingly, Hartley-Lewchuk says Fraser Health Authority never visited the Chimo program to evaluate it before cutting all its funding, nor has she yet had a meeting with its officials -- requested back in October -- to explain their decision.
Late Monday, Fraser Health Authority spokesperson Roy Thorpe said the evaluation of Chimo did not involve client interviews or discussions with the administrator or staff because of "confidentiality concerns around budget decisions" and because Authority directors "familiar with the program" were involved in determining the cuts.
Thorpe added that both an Authority director for home health and vice-president clinical operations Barbara Korabek called Chimo's Hartley-Lewchuk, but after the decision was made.
The B.C. Coalition of People with Disabilities is shocked at the closure, and the lack of evaluation.
"This is the sort of cost-effective model that should be expanded, not removed," says executive director Jane Dyson. "This is a very backward move by Fraser Health."
And the Multiple Sclerosis Society agrees.
"The closure of Chimo would be a detriment to the disadvantaged and vulnerable population," says Adrianne Boothroyd, the MS Society's Lower Mainland chapter manager. "We strongly suggest a reconsideration for funding for this important and essential organization."
Chimo clients organizing
But Chimo clients are not giving up, despite the impending deadline. Lawrence Bibby has created both an online petition and a Facebook protest page to urge Fraser Health and B.C. to reverse the closure.
And you can see the reaction of the clients themselves to the closure of Chimo in an online video.
Fraser Health Authority's spokesperson Roy Thorpe told me Friday that all Chimo clients have either been referred to an "alternate day program" or will get some additional home support.
But Thorpe admitted those programs are for seniors, not younger people in wheelchairs, and didn't have an answer about Fraser Health's lack of evaluation before killing Chimo as part of its $160 million cost cutting exercise.
Thorpe says the decision to cut all funding "was never meant to suggest there wasn't great value to the program."
But he did have a response when asked if Fraser Health would reconsider the decision to close Chimo: "No."
I urge you to not take no for an answer -- help those people with disabilities who want to live independently at home by signing the petition, joining the Facebook group and letting your MLA know this foolish decision will only cost our healthcare system even more money while punishing those who don't deserve it. ![[Tyee]](http://thetyee.cachefly.net/ui/img/ico_fishie.png){kind=small}
MichaelT
11-01-2010
shocking
shocking
Grandma_J
11-01-2010
Keep up the fight for Chimo
Great article, Bill! Chimo does an excellent job of promoting wellness among the people who attend. For a close friend of mine with MS, it’s the highlight of her week. However it’s also important to recognize the immense value of the peer support it provides. People with disabilities can become very isolated and their social interactions focus on the medical issues resulting from their disability. Chimo gives the participants an opportunity to share their common experiences and have fun together
From the Victoria BC Disability Resource Centre website “It is through the context of a supportive peer environment that an individual can gain the skills and self-confidence needed to overcome barriers and to learn to manage personal and community resources.”
One small criticism – Chimo is located in Coquitlam not Port Coquitlam. However participants come from the Tri-Cities, Burnaby, New Westminster and Maple Ridge.
I hope everyone will join Lawrence’s Facebook group and watch for announcements about other ways we can show our support. Time is running out for Chimo. It would be a real shame if our community lost this remarkable resource.
ME2
12-01-2010
it's Campbell's game plan.
This has nothing to do with "cost effectiveness'. It has everything to do with today's constant chipping away at the "Welfare State".
While Americans struggle to insert some humanity into their failing Social Safety Net, we are watching OUR governments strive to bring us - bit-by-bit - to that level.
bougie
12-01-2010
home support
Those clients as we call them are send home with "some" extra home support. Just check with Fraser Health what that means. The home support services have been cut steadily over the last years.
This has nothing to do with best practice or caring for people with needs this has everything to do with cutting 160 million of the budget as demanded by the liberal government. No compassion to be expected, let me tell you, just cold hard cash for the folks in power.
Realist
12-01-2010
Disabled people better off dead: policy of canadian governments
What is shocking is that most of the public remain blissfully unaware that the disabled of Canada are universally treated as a waste of resources by both federal and provincial governments. Canada has been sited THREE times by the United Nations for treating our disabled in inhumane ways. Why is it that the majority of Canadian citizens are unaware of the plight of Canada's most vulnerable? As a disabled father of a ten year old I am constantly disapointed by a public that simply accepts the plight of the disabled. Pray it never happens to you or your loveones as you will enter a new world where humans are deemed expendable by all levels of government.
sbvancouver
12-01-2010
Excellent article
Thank you for bringing an important issue to the public's attention.
Tieleman
12-01-2010
Bill Tieleman replies
Thanks for the kind comments - but I am a bit disheartened that more Tyee posters aren't active on this issue and that more people haven't joined the Facebook group or signed the online petition.
We are all busy folks but this is the last chance for a great program to survive - please don't delay and take action today.
crankypants
13-01-2010
Political baffelgab
Once again our braintrusts choose a path that is penny-wise and pound foolish. Save a buck today so that you will pay out mega times more down the road.
The problem is that our politicians do not think any further than their current term in government as they may not be in power any longer than that. They do not care what the long term repercussions may be because they may no longer be responsible for the results of their decisions.
Our political system is to blame for this whole situation. All they have to do is hire the henchmen to do their bidding and let them take the flak from the fallout. Our politicians have just found it to easy to deflect responsibility by passing the buck.
Bottom line is that this programme should never have been cancelled.
Fiat lux
13-01-2010
The reason for these these
The reason for these these cuts is very obvious. Just ask the Fraser Inst. "Good economics! "
To permit and give chance for our wealth creating foreign investors to take more and more out of what's supposed to be the "richest country on Earth" even by World Bank figures.
What we'll have to do, and our governments are doing, is to sell more and more of the country to them so they can create more wealth.
Ed Deak.
Jeannie
13-01-2010
Where do they go?
Bill, thanks for article and I did sign the petition as I am aware of this program.
My elderly father has dementia and is in a care facility in the Fraser Health area that is in dire need of some upgrades. As such, there are vacancies in the facility and I am noticing that increasingly I am seeing younger people with I suspect mental illness and people with diseases such as MS in both the day and residential care area. It is heartbreaking to see these younger people, manywith sharp minds but damaged bodies being shoe-horned into programs and activities for the 85 years and over group. Is this what is happening?
ExpatTed
13-01-2010
Joined, signed, and MLA contacted!
As anti-social as I have become, I want to share with you a piece of my story. Many people come back from a near-death experience with a new appreciation for life. I came back with a new appreciation of just how awful it is to come to understand you will never be who you used to be.
I am no one's poster-child for heroically overcoming adversity. I don't even make a good poster-middle-aged man for living with Anomic Aphasia.
Still, because of the outpatient rehab care I received from GF Strong after a traumatic brain injury, I've gone from being an almost weekly visitor at the St. Paul's ER to one of the fortunate few who is able to work enough to be independent.
My (former) family doctor literally said to me a few months after the injury, "There's nothing else I can do for you, just go to the hospital when the pain is too much." And I did, 3-4 times a month, month after month, until I got into the brain injury rehab program.
However, since I graduated (on my 3rd try, I wasn't the easiest of patients) I've stayed out of hospital, gotten education appropriate to my reduced skills, and I've been able to work enough to stay off public assistance. I am a success, if not the success I once was.
These are accomplishments that most people with an acquired brain injury never make. And I couldn't have made them without the program. I am not special -other than being an especially cranky and difficult patient. I was below average in recovering abilities during the first 18 months, and that window has closed.
But I still graduated equipped with the skills I needed to survive.
You, the fully-abled, will never understand how becoming disabled or chronically ill can turn life into a solitary experience; I hope you never do. But all of us can understand that taking away whatever degree of social interaction and specialized care that makes life tolerable for the Chimo clients, eases the burden on their families, and offers them hope and a chance to do and be more is beyond callous.
I'm challenging you all: if I can comment, sign a petition, join a group, and write a letter, you can too. The bar is not high if I made it between afternoon doses of morphine and an unscheduled narcoleptic nap. Whatever it takes to inspire you -guilt, compassion, or proving yourself at least as marginally competent as the brain damaged- find it in yourself and go *do something* about it.
Every word you write and every action you take will mean so much to people who have had another yet another obstacle to leading a meaningful life thrown in front of them.
Caring matters. It matters to me, and I don't even have a lot of functioning cells left in the part of my brain that relates to people. "The dog ate my social conscious" is not an excuse that'll get you off the hook. Do something, and do it now. Because it matters to you, too.
-Ted
Tieleman
14-01-2010
Tieleman answers
First - many thinks to ExPatTed for his moving story and call to action - well done!
To answer Jeannie - yes, that's exactly what is happening in the case of Chimo and no doubt other programs elsewhere - inappropriate placement of younger adults into seniors programs and seniors' centres.
This is what Chimo clients feared because there simply are no other programs for them. And additional home care is not exercise or social activity or therapy.
Thanks to everyone who has helped try to keep Chimo open.
Norman Farrell
14-01-2010
More lives threatened by Liberal policies
Vancouver Coastal Health is eliminating positions for Registered Nurses in seniors' care. The plan is to cut most of the RNs and replace them with Practical Nurses with substantially lower qualifications. Not only that, the plan is to cut patient care staffing by 1/3. This will compromise safety and degrade care.
More here:
http://northerninsights.blogspot.com/2010/01/trouble-brewing-in-seniors-care.html