The pediatrics ward may have been taken off the chopping block, but now Langley's seniors are going to be feeling the cuts from Fraser Health Authority's axe.

FHA has cut funding to the Langley Seniors Resource Centre's outreach program as of Sept. 30 -- impacting 650 of Langley's most frail and vulnerable seniors.

"These are our frailest of the frail. Many of them aren't well enough to come visit the centre so we go to them, try to keep them connected, take them to doctors appointments, bring them groceries," said Sharon Birnie, Seniors Centre executive director. She is livid and can't believe the FHA would go after a program that saves the province money through prevention and intervention.

"Outreach is the glue around here -- it's the difference between not being well and living in isolation and wanting to stay home and being able to, happily," she said.

FHA was providing $86,000 per year for the program that has more than 135 volunteers. The funding cut will mean five layoffs at the centre.

"We've been doing this for 19 years," she said. "We have 75 volunteer drivers who do 300 rides a month who will no longer be doing it."

Drivers take seniors to medical appointments in Vancouver, where HandiDart can't, they do grocery shopping and delivery through the centre's 'shop by phone' program.

Many seniors in Langley want to live at home but have no family to get them around or to visit with. That's where outreach comes in, she said.

Other outreach volunteers are part of the telephone reassurance program. Shut-ins are looked after by volunteers, to make sure they stay connected and are getting all the help they need. Even during this heat wave, volunteers, through the outreach program, played a vital role in checking in on seniors who don't have family around to help.

But all of these outreach programs require a lot of organization, planning and resources -- all of that can't happen without the funding.

Arlene Brown has been a volunteer counsellor with the centre for more than a decade. She works with seniors who need to fill out complicated government forms, figure out power of attorney, pensions and other important paper work. She also makes sure seniors know what resources are available to them, like having a case manager.

She also teaches peer counselling to other seniors who volunteer to outreach with seniors going through depression, loneliness and other emotions either from the loss of a spouse or isolation.

"We can usually figure out the problems and make people's situations better for them," said Birnie.

Birnie is taking 30 to 40 referrals a day for outreach, usually from family doctors or the hospital from patients in need of the outreach program.

"We are going to stop providing these services. We just can't do it without that money," she said. "I don't know what is going to happen to all those seniors in need?"

She is angry that a bureaucracy like the FHA would cut such a successful program that has volunteers doing all the work.

"I though they were supposed to be looking at their own administration?"

Langley City Mayor Peter Fassbender said he was 'disturbed' by the news and would be looking into it immediately upon his return from his holidays.

In a leaked FHA document about finding $160 million in savings, cutting off outreach programs across the region is on the list. "Seek other agencies to fund $425,000 (annually) in contracted services that provide outreach to isolated seniors," it reads. FHA either didn't seek out any other source of funding or no other agency was found.

In the draft document, it questions whether this cut will result in "more vulnerable seniors needing acute care?" They answer that the "program cuts were evaluated against the need to protect priority patient care."

NDP health critic Adrian Dix said the cuts to outreach is 'absurd.'

"The consequences of this will show in Langley Memorial's emergency ward. These are the exact programs that keep people healthy and out of hospitals." White Rock's senior support services were also cut.

He hopes Langley residents will band together and fight against this cut and the closure of pediatrics and maternity, which he contests is still under review despite MLA Rich Coleman's words to the contrary.

"All of these cuts are courtesy of the B.C. Liberal government, including Langley's two MLAs, who ordered the FHA not to deal with the budget shortfall until after the election," Dix said. "Now they are making hasty decisions in August in an effort to find cost-savings in the next fiscal year."

The FHA communications department couldn't find anyone to respond by The Star's deadline. If FHA responds, that response will be posted on The Star's website.