OrilliaMatters welcomes letters to the editor ([email protected]) Please include your full name, phone number and address for verification purposes or your letter will not be published. The following letter, from a person who has a member of their family at Sunset Manor, is in response to an article, titled 'County-run home hit with two more fines, brings total to $27,500', published Oct. 24.
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With the municipal election tally complete, and a new Simcoe County council ready to be sworn in, Sunset Manor has just received its newest report from the Ontario Ministry of Long-Term Care.
At the bottom of the report, we see that we have been fined an additional $16,500 for non-compliance with orders. This is added to the $11,000 we received in July and August, making a grand total of $27,500 in wasted Simcoe County taxpayers' dollars. Much needed money in our county-run long-term care system.
At what point do we hold our county representatives and the manager of health services and long-term care accountable for this mess? The new council will be sworn in shortly, but the manager is a full-time paid employee of the county and she does not need to get elected.
We are now in our 16th month under a cease new admissions order at Sunset Manor. The resident number is dwindling and sits at 101 residents with 49 beds unoccupied. With a recent COVID outbreak on one of our floors, the first seen by Sunset Manor since the beginning of the pandemic, we pray for all that are infected, but we may see more empty beds shortly.
Your votes count. Your mayor and deputy mayor are going to sit on the new Simcoe County council. They are in charge of how your county tax dollars are spent. They have the power to put the paramedics and long-term care branch of the county under review and see why it is failing.
When do the residents of Simcoe County say, 'enough is enough?' How much wasted money is your breaking point, when this could have been resolved in a timely manner?
Sunset Manor in Collingwood used to be the best county-run long-term care home in the county. The waiting list was extensive to get into our home. Now here we are struggling for survival. Why? What went wrong? Why can we not get this resolved? Ask your elected officials in the coming months these questions.
Todd Manary
Collingwood
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