By Ruby Pratka
Local Journalism Initiative
The Bedford Pole Health Committee (BPHC) and Bedford Pole Economic Relaunch Committee brought their fight for the expansion of the CHSLD de Bedford to the National Assembly last week.
In 2019, the CIUSSS de l’Estrie-CHUS announced plans for a $15.1-million expansion of the facility, to increase its capacity to 49 residents, create a protected unit with eight places for people with cognitive disabilities who are susceptible to wandering and allow residents to move into private rooms. The project ran into delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but in 2022, then-seniors’ affairs minister Marguerite Blais said the government planned to move forward with the planned expansion. In June of this year, however, the CIUSSS announced that the project was off the table. A lack of demand, a cultural shift to home care, the growth of the Maison des Ainés network and the CIUSSS budget deficit have been among the reasons cited.
The facility’s catchment area covers the greater Bedford region – Bedford, Bedford Township, Notre-Dame-de-Stanbridge, Pike River, Saint-Armand, Saint-Ignace-de-Stanbridge, Stanbridge East and Stanbridge Station – with an estimated population of 8,000 people. Over the summer, BPHC members circulated a petition around the region in favour of the project which received more than 3,400 signatures. On Oct. 10, Liberal seniors’ affairs critic Linda Caron tabled the petition at the National Assembly. BPHC co-spokespeople Pierrette Messier-Peet and Normand Deragon, Bedford Township Coun. France Groulx and president of the Fédération de l’Age d’Or du Québec (FADOQ) for the Haute-Yamaska region André Beaumont looked on from the gallery.
Caron called on local MNA Isabelle Charest to revive the project and criticized her for not meeting directly with BPHC representatives. “Monday morning, I went to the CHSLD de Bedford, with the [BPHC], CHSLD residents, local elected officials and Bedford residents, to pick up their petition, signed by 45 per cent of the [adult] population,” Caron said during question period. “The CAQ promised to expand and renovate their CHSLD. Unfortunately, nothing has happened in Bedford yet.”
Seniors’ affairs minister Sonia Bélanger responded, noting that Charest had met with local elected officials and representatives of the Fondation Lévesque-Craighead, which raises money for improvements to health facilities in the region and had raised over $250,000 toward the CHSLD expansion. She also noted that the CIUSSS planned to renovate the home later this year with input from residents.
“We want to allow our seniors to live the last stage of their lives in the community that they helped develop. Right now, we have seniors in our region who are being sent 40 minutes or an hour away from their families,” Messier later said. “Do we, as citizens of a [rural] region, not have the same rights to services as people in large urban centres?… We want to have this project back for the good of our region.”
“What do you want when you’re in your last couple of months of life?” asked Deragon. “You don’t want anything fancy – you want people to come visit you. I know people at the CHSLD de Bedford whose relatives come to visit every evening. If you’re sent away, no one will come visit.”
On the floor of the National Assembly, Charest said she had been “engaged and mobilized” on the file, although as a minister, she could not table a petition. She said CIUSSS officials will meet with the foundation on Oct. 16. A spokesperson for Charest, Maryse Dubois, said smaller renovations would go ahead as planned.