The only long-term care home in Fort St. John, B.C., is failing seniors, family members say

Scott Campbell recalls the time he went to visit his 100-year-old mother at her long-term care home in Fort St. John, B.C., and found her shivering and crying under a mountain of blankets, unable to warm up. 

Campbell, who is the volunteer chair of the facility's resident and family council, says he went straight to management at Peace Villa, but they said there was nothing they could do because the thermostats are set to a certain range and space heaters are banned. 

"It makes you sad. It makes you angry. It makes you despise the people running the place," said Campbell, who described his mother Mary as a "a tough pioneer woman from the North Peace" who was teaching students in a single-room schoolhouse with no power at age 17. 

"In a situation where things could easily be changed, they won't," he told CBC News.

The temperature issue is just one of many problems that Campbell has highlighted at Peace Villa, a facility licensed by Northern Health that has been the subject of dozens of complaints since 2019.

These complaints include lack of food for residents, emergency call buzzers left out of reach of residents, and difficulties in the process of actually lodging complaints. 

Peace Villa is the only long-term care home in Fort St. John, with the nearest alternative being Dawson Creek, around 65 kilometres away.

At the last residents' survey conducted by the B.C. seniors advocate in 2017, 27 per cent of Peace Villa residents rated their quality of care as less than "good," almost twice the provincial average of 15 per cent.

The home has been subject to 49 official complaints to the Patient Care Quality Office and Northern Health. But Campbell says that number doesn't include less formal complaints lodged with staff and management at the facility. 

In a written statement, Northern Health said it couldn't comment on specific complaints due to privacy concerns.

In response to Campbell's concerns about heating, it said staff check windows, adjust thermostats, and provide warm clothes and hot drinks when a resident reports being too cold. 

Residential care homes are governed by the Community Care and Assisted Living Act, which sets requirements for care providers to follow, including room temperatures that are "safe and comfortable for a person." 

Campbell says the thermostats at Peace Villa are set between 22 C and 24 C, whereas his mother is comfortable closer to 27 C. 

The Community Care Act also mandates at least two snacks a day be served in between meals — but this is another requirement Campbell says he often sees ignored.