A new round of sweeping cuts by the Fraser Health Authority will eliminate 42 residential care beds at Peace Arch Hospital and close hospice, detox and psychiatric beds elsewhere in the region.

Fraser Health CEO Nigel Murray said a wide range of newly adopted spending reductions will all but erase a $160-million budget shortfall, leaving the region facing a deficit of $10.2 million that it will continue working to eliminate.

“Some patients, clients and residents will feel the impacts of the cuts,” Murray said.

He broke the news just before Fraser Health’s public board meeting at the Pacific Inn Thursday, as hospital staff scrambled to tell families and residents before they heard it from the media.

The cut at Peace Arch will close 42 longterm care beds on the third floor of the hospital’s 22-year-old Weatherby Pavilion.

White Rock’s Beverley Kilpatrick said her mother, Irene, is one of the residents who will be out in the cold come the end of February. She learned of the situation when she visited Thursday.

Staff, patients and families are devastated, Kilpatrick said.

And while Barbara Korabek, Fraser’s vice-president of clinical operations, said there are plenty of beds available at Peace Arch or in other nearby residential care homes to absorb the reduction – “We will not force a client to move anywhere,” she said – Kilpatrick was not comforted.

“(The residents) are all expected to find a new place to live by the end of February, and I don’t know how that’s ever going to be accomplished because in these places, somebody has to die for somebody else to get in,” she said.

Kilpatrick is concerned about a notice that implies the residents will have to choose a private room and foot the bill for the full cost of their care. The move would result in a substantial cost increase, she said.

“I came home and cried for 15 minutes,” Kilpatrick said.

There was no word on what the pavilion’s third floor will be used for after the residents are out.

The news comes less than a year after more than $100,000 in renovations was done to the building, an effort to address overcrowding and safety issues.

The pending Weatherby floor closure eliminates 40 registered nurse positions there and 3.5 other positions, saving $1.6 million.

“We currently have hundreds of RN positions vacant in Fraser Health,” Korabek said, adding she’s confident those nurses will have the option to take other jobs in Fraser.

Funding will also be axed for two 11-bed residential care homes in Surrey – Bear Creek Lodge and Newton Regency.

Officials say the two facilities are older and the private owner-operators have indicated plans to cease operations.

Chilliwack General Hospital will lose a 10-bed withdrawal management unit – addicts who go there for detox will instead be sent to the Creekside withdrawal unit at Surrey.

The two units ran at about two-thirds capacity, and consolidating them made sense, Korabek said, adding home detox may work better for some clients.

Also to close is a six-bed regional adolescent psychiatric unit at Abbotsford Regional Hospital. Patients who now go there will be sent to Surrey Memorial instead. The Abbotsford beds often weren’t used to capacity.

Korabek admitted sending eastern Fraser Valley psychiatric patients and addicts to Surrey, instead of serving them closer to home, is not ideal.

“There’s no doubt those patients will feel an impact,” she said.

Those beds will close after existing patients are discharged.

Queen’s Park Care Centre in New Westminster will lose a 25-bed convalescent care unit that officials say is no longer needed. An eight-bed hospice unit also closes there, but a 10-bed hospice is opening in Delta, which didn’t previously have the service.

Other cuts include:

• Elimination of 15 patient counsellors, spread across all hospitals, saving $1.15 million from social work spending.

• Elimination of 12 hospital-based spiritual care co-ordinators, saving $650,000, leaving grief counseling and spiritual care to be provided by volunteers and social workers.

• Cutting 5.5 health unit aides who work in public health promotion and prevention to save $250,000.

• An end to funding for Matrix Youth Addictions Program in Maple Ridge/Pitt Meadows.

The latest cuts come on top of previously announced plans to reduce elective surgery in the months ahead, cap MRI scans and reduce funding for a wide range of service providers.

Fraser has also moved to redesignate acute care beds at hospitals for long-term care, reducing the number of RNs required.

The future of Mission Memorial Hospital’s ER also remains up in the air, after the authority tabled options to save money there.

Murray said Fraser has also secured major savings through consolidating services with nearby Vancouver Coastal Health Authority, including pharmacy, parking and security services.

Officials are also looking at consolidating property leases and selling off surplus land where possible.

Fraser Health, which has a $2.4-billion annual budget, got a 4.9 per cent base budget increase from last year.

But it is grappling with growth that runs at twice the provincial average, coupled with higher operating costs from opening new facilities like the Abbotsford hospital, locked-in negotiated wage increases and other inflation.

“We’ve been given a directive that we must balance our budget,” said board chair Gordon Barefoot.

The region is also cutting administration and management costs from about 10.6 per cent of the budget to 9.6 per cent, by eliminating vice-presidents and other administrators.

NDP health critic Adrian Dix questioned the elimination of public health unit aides in the midst of the H1N1 pandemic – as well as other cuts.

"At a time in Vancouver when there's a genuine mental health crisis, to be eliminating some psychiatry beds and addictions programs is wrong," he said.

Coupled with the earlier announced cuts, the new measures are "fairly dramatic," he said.

"This is not what they promised in the election campaign," Dix said. "They knew this was coming. And people will now pay a terrible price."

– with files from Tracy Holmes