They’re smiling, even though for the last hour they’ve been put through the paces.

While the group of 15 bobs to the crooning of Roger Miller’s “King of the Road,” a couple of canes lean against a wall, patiently awaiting their owners.

Some of the participants sing along as they raise foam bricks in front of them.

Up, down, up, down.

One gentleman, dressed in a knitted sweater and trousers, breaks the routine to shake out his arms.

The active buzz slows as a booming Italian opera singer’s voice fills the room. His notes soar. The group stretch their hands upward. Then the love-soaked ballad comes to a towering end.

With that some people head to the water fountain, others listen to the instructor’s jokes and at the end of it all there’s a group hug. And cake.

Jack Pirch started North Shore Keep Well class last year — he’s a newcomer.

Five years ago he suffered a stroke. His doctor told him he might lose his leg’s movement if he didn’t exercise. Keep Well helps him do exactly what its name states, he says.

But before talking about health benefits, Pirch focuses on a smaller detail.

“It does me a lot of good. It makes me have a bath, shave and get ready to go out.”

Yet the fitness classes that give Pirch that extra boost, along with 300 other North Shore seniors each week, may soon disappear.

North Shore Keep Well is one of four North Shore seniors programs — along with Seniors’ One Stop Information and Referral Program, North Shore Seniors Peer Support and Golden Circle — that are feeling the bite of Vancouver Coastal Health’s funding cuts.

This summer, while staff were on vacation and boards in recess, the health authority warned of reductions. Ultimately $134,000 was sliced from local senior services, leaving vulnerable residents in peril, North Shore Community Resources’ executive director Li Boesen says.

Keep Well Society received an 85 per cent cut to its overall operating budget, while Seniors’ One Stop Information had 100 per cent chopped and Golden Circle and North Shore Seniors Peer Support both saw a 50 per cent disappear.

“(The 100 per cent cut) will decimate the (One-Stop) program” Boesen says, adding Vancouver Coastal Health should have worked with service providers before making the cuts.

In 1992, with the help of Coastal Health, One-Stop was created out of need, the program’s co-ordinator Liz Neal says.

Receiving 3,000 calls per year from clients and 2,000 from individuals or agencies seeking assistance for their clients, One-Stop connects seniors to community services. It’s the hub for information and a resource many programs rely on to bring clients to their doors, Neal says.

The program’s two part-time positions will be dropped. This leaves the North Shore Community Resources wondering how the front desk will be able to handle the additional workload, Neal says.

“(The cuts are) so short sighted,” she says. “We want to be seen as a part of the solution not just an add on that gets axed whenever funds aren’t available.”

Golden Circle is the only North Shore service specific to frail seniors, says Tricia Andrew, North Shore Neighbourhood House’s manager for community services and seniors.

Over the next 20 years there will be an estimated 56 per cent increase in the North Shore’s population 65 years and older, states Coastal Health’s 2009 Community Health Profile. Like all of the programs facing funding cuts, Golden Circle keeps seniors out of acute care, saving Coastal Health money, Andrew says, adding ninety per cent of seniors have a least one chronic health condition.

These cuts have far-reaching effects beyond seniors, says Cindy Bouvet, North Shore Community Resources’ Caregiver Support Program’s coordinator. By not providing such services, more costs and support needs will weigh on families’ shoulders, she says.

“On the North Shore there are 17,000 caregivers looking after seniors. One in five people over the age of 45, looks after a senior,” Bouvet says, adding 60 per cent of seniors are cared for by seniors.

Coastal Health had to make the funding cuts in order to protect core patient services, says the authority’s spokesperson Anna Marie D’Angelo.

Although the authority received a $2.9 billion budget, more money than previous years, the cash didn’t cover operations, she says. Currently the authority has a $90-million deficit.

In March the authority was forced to cut $23.6 million in administrative support.

“The next thing we reviewed was our contracts and we have several hundred,” D’Angelo says.

The authority first checked for duplicated services and then examined services the authority provides in-house, she says, adding the cuts were made to programs that have multiple funding sources.

“On the North Shore, outside of all the seniors and acute care at Lions Gate Hospital, there’s $69 million (worth) that we do for seniors in residential care and convalescent care,” D’Angelo says. “We are trying to protect those – those are direct patient medical care.”

As for the future and possible return of funding to programs, she didn’t want to speculate.

“We are committed to meeting our budget first of all. We are committed to saving patient core services, and that is direct patient care. So you know something has got to go.”

raldous@northshoreoutlook.com