CEO’s Newsletter – May 2018

Hello,
In my last newsletter, I had told you about this great construction project that would see us adding independent living units to our facility. After much planning and consultations, we have decided to abandon the project, at least for the time being. It was simply too costly. This is of course unfortunate since some members of our community who do not qualify for subsidized housing (their income is too high) will not be able to join us. Many of them have made generous contributions to Villa Youville over the years, especially when it came to adding to our facilities such as our new Nursing. They have also been and still are great volunteers. It would have been a pleasure to have them move in with us.
You will no doubt be surprised to learn that waiting lists for Personal Care Homes in Manitoba such as our Nursing are much shorter than they used to be, especially in urban areas. We are trending in the opposite direction. Our waiting lists are much longer than they have ever been. At the present time, we have 30 candidates waiting for admission to our Nursing and 10 more for the Pavillon supportive. With such high demand, we may have to look at adding to our facility.
We have ended the financial year with small surpluses in most areas, except for the congregate meal program and services to residents of our Motels. These surpluses were put to good use. We did a complete cleaning of our ventilation systems, painted hallways and common areas, and we will be replacing hallway carpets in the coming weeks. Our “chez-nous” should always be comfortable and attractive.
Since the creation of the Regional Health Authority, our Personal Care Home laundry had been done at Bethesda Hospital in Steinbach. As of April 1st, we are doing all of our laundry in-house. Our laundry operation now runs seven days a week with better services to our residents at a lesser cost to our corporation while adding jobs in our community. Celeste Pattyn, our Housekeeping and Laundry Lead, and her team have been absolutely wonderful in making this happen. Our thanks also go to Marcel Manaigre and Gilbert Audette who took care of the renovations and new equipment installation. Leon Tétreault’s talents were put to good use to do the required millwork which included an oversized table for laundry folding. This was a tremendous team effort!
As good news go, I have kept the very best for last. As many of you know, I have been trying to land the services of a resident priest to be our full-time chaplain. I thought that we had succeeded when Father Thibault moved in with us. He did not want to be formally appointed Villa Youville’s chaplain, but he was quite willing to provide certain services such as mass celebrations and pastoral accompaniment. Unfortunately and very much to our sorrow, Father Thibault chose to move back to St. Boniface after a short stay with us. Since that time, I had been in contact with the Provincial Superior of the Redemptorist Order in Ste-Anne-de-Beaupré. As many of you know, the Redemptorists were our parish priest for many years, here in Ste-Anne. I am happy to tell you that the Provincial Superior has accepted our request that Father Alfred Désautels, a Ste-Anne native son well known by many of you, be assigned to Villa Youville as our chaplain. Alfred will move in with us at the end of June and will take up his new duties on August 1st. This is wonderful news for all of us. We wish Father Alfred a most heartfelt welcome back home.

Have a wonderful summer!

Paul (Ruest)