The District of Houston council is continuing to press Northern Health for improvements and additions to its services here.
Speaking at the July 4 council meeting, mayor Shane Brienen reported on what he said was a good recent session he and councillor Tom Euverman had with Northern Health representatives.
“We just talked about some of the challenges in our community and for seniors getting around town and we talked about how it’s really tough in our community for seniors in the winter, that there’s not a lot for them to do and there’s a lot of fall hazards,” he said.
Brienen also spoke of the difficulty the District has in persuading the province to finance seniors services in the community because of the way the province and Northern Health estimate the population of senior citizens.
“We talked a little bit about how we track seniors and we’re told by the province that it’s tough to get a senior care facility here because we don’t have the numbers or we don’t have those people here,” he said.
Brienen added that the District counters that by saying Houston seniors in need of care often live in Burns Lake or Smithers which do have facilities.
“So I don’t know if we’ll make any headway there but they seemed to be interested on that piece about how numbers are collected,” Brienen continued.
At the moment Cottonwood Manor in Houston has 22 units made up of six assisted living care units and 16 independent living units where residents can receive assistance.
The Houston council has previously pushed for the assisted living units to be converted to long term care ones to better serve the local seniors population.
There are also four long term care beds at the Houston Health Centre.
Houston council’s advocacy for the local seniors also comes at a time when Northern Health is contemplating increasing the size of its long term care Bulkley Lodge care facility in Smithers.
It also wants to improve seniors care in the Hazeltons.