Hospice announces Mount as new location

Losier Foundation seeks audience with City Council

Two groups are seeking to operate hospices in Miramichi. Yesterday, November 23rd, 2022, Hospice Miramichi issued a press release that it would begin offering residential hospice services at Mount St. Joseph (former nursing home) beginning in 2023. On Tuesday the 22nd, City Council had a meeting where they discussed some correspondence that they received from Dr. Gerard and Judy Losier requesting an audience with Council to discuss Percy Place, a hospice the family plans to open in Chatham at the newly constructed facility near the Losier homestead on Water Street.

Hospice Miramichi and the Losiers had been working toward the same goal until the spring of 2022 when the relationship ended, and the Dr. Gerard and Judy Losier Family Foundation said they planned to pursue a hospice in the newly constructed facility and any reference to Hospice Miramichi was removed from the foundation web page. ( LINK)

In 2010 Hospice Miramichi began fundraising with the goal of opening a residential hospice in the city. At the time there were only two full-time hospices east of Quebec, but since then one has opened in Moncton in August 2021. In January 2018 there was an announcement that the Losier family would donate the land for the hospice (originally intended for the Gordon Road, but later moved to Water Street) and also guarantee the mortgage. The province agreed to contribute money toward clinical costs, and RDC (Regional Development Corporation, also the NB government) agreed to contribute some money toward construction.

VIDEO: News conference about Losier family donation 

At the news conference Dr. Losier said he studied the hospice plan and felt it was viable, and that it could help with overcrowding in the hospital. It would be a $3.5 million project (increased to $4.3 million after the delay) that would create the equivalent of 15 full-time jobs and “help people live” in their final days. The City of Miramichi contributed $90,000 toward construction expenses.

Judy Losier spoke at the event and told the crowd that Hospice Miramichi was a community project, not a “Gerad and Judy project”, and urged the community to continue to support the organization's fundraising efforts.

The model of operation for the facility will be that it will have 6 beds, 4 designated for patients with a life expectancy of 6 months or less, and 2 for people seeking respite. The patients will be referred to the facility by the Extramural program, and will be cared for by the hospice staff. This service model was proposed by Hospice Miramichi, and was adopted on a trial basis by the province. 

The estimated cost of operating the hospice is approximately $1 million a year. The contribution from the government accounts for $483,000 a year until the agreement ends, and the organization will have to fund raise the rest. Speculation is that once the hospice is operational and the benefits of the service are more readily seen, fundraising will be much easier. In 2020 Hospice Miramichi revenue from donations, fundraising programs and the Hospice Shoppe was approximately $150,000. Aside from wages for healthcare workers, all other expenses will be covered by Hospice Miramichi.

Is the government still on board?

In May of 2022 after the news of the rift between Hospice and the Losier’s foundation, Miramichi Online contacted the Department of Health to inquire about the clinical funding and also the RDC funding for the construction of the building on Water Street. According to the response in May 2022, the agreements with Miramichi Hospice Inc are as follows:

"The Department of Health has a five-year memorandum of understanding which expires March 2025. Hospice Miramichi Inc was provided with partial clinical funding in the amount of $542,074 per year. As the hospice has not yet opened, no funds have yet been transferred.

Regional Development Corporation’s agreement, like the Department of Health, is with Hospice Miramichi Inc. and not the [Losier] Foundation. 

RDC approved $480,000 to help with the construction costs of the hospice. To date, approximately $43,000 was expensed for engineering and design. There has been no activity or progress for the past 3 years and Hospice Miramichi is welcome to re-apply for funding once the project is ready to restart."  -- Dept. of Health

Miramichi Online reached out to Connie Doucet, who had been the driving force behind Hospice Miramichi Inc from the beginning, to ask about the state of the agreement with the province. Doucet is now the Executive Director of Mount St. Joseph, the new home of the hospice, and said she has “limited involvement” with Hospice and directed our inquiry to Paul McGraw. McGraw responded by saying he is not permitted to discuss the agreement as per a non-disclosure provision in the contract with the government.

MLA Michelle Conroy responded and said there is a contract with Hospice Miramichi Inc for the next five years. Conroy was not in office when the initial contract was offered. Conroy has been working with Mount St. Joseph trying to find alternative streams of revenue since the facility ceased to operate as a nursing home. The New Brunswick government covered $10 million in renovations loans for the facility after it announced the two new Shannex nursing homes in Miramichi.