A tale of two feuding hospices in Miramichi

There's a fight going on here in Miramichi over hospice services, care for the dying and how the New Brunswick government is spending tax dollars on it. By the numbers only one hospice is needed here. Miramichi has two, five minutes apart. Dr Gerard Lozier runs Percy's Place. The question really becomes for government support is who's doing the best care for the community. Peggy McLean chairs the board at Vondie House. That to us is just noise. We've never stopped being focused on what it is that we do here. Good morning. How are you doing, guys? Both facilities provide end-of-life care for people with terminal illnesses. Become family in a short time. You know, the food is unreal. The care that you get is unreal. I don't know. You can't say enough good about the place. Back in 2020, Hospice Miramichi signed an agreement with the province to provide hospice services, with Lozier's family foundation on board to finance the building. Lozier says he started worrying about the board's ability to raise money to run the hospice and to pay back his foundation for construction costs. He says he asked for a role on the board and was told no. It was them that left. It wasn't us. We did not terminate the agreement. We tried to work it out, and they were the ones that sent the letter that we were interfering with their autonomy, they called it. McLean said she didn't want to get into the back and forth of the dispute. We really don't focus on that whatsoever. We really do just focus on providing the best care that we can here. In this statement of defense in a lawsuit Lozier filed over the debt from the failed partnership, the Hospice Miramichi board says he intimidated them and tried to interfere with their operations. Nothing in the lawsuit was ever tested in court, and Lozier recently dropped the case. In the wake of the split, Hospice Miramichi established Vondie House and set out to meet the terms of the agreement with the province. Meanwhile, Lozier's foundation began paying for Percy's place itself. To me, that's not fair. Like, for this place to be getting nothing, it's not fair. And, you know, we have one that's being partially government-funded, and that's not getting any patients. And then we have another one that's getting so many patients and they're not government funded. Lozier is suing the daughter of the hospice Miramichi board chair for defamation, claiming she accused him of benefiting personally from all the patients ending up at Percy's place. Her response, Lozier was trying to intimidate her and she tried to resolve the situation with his lawyer. None of that has been proven and she denies his claims. I have no personal gain here. I've been 45 years in practice. I don't have any personal gain. I don't think our facility has any personal gain. Lozier recently posted this graphic on social media suggesting he deserves funding because he has a lot more patients than Vondie House. We've shown that we've done a good job. Our stats, our statistics exemplify that. And hopefully the government will recognize that. We went through court filings in two lawsuits and more than 700 pages of correspondence we obtained through a right to information request to try to understand what this debate is all about. Without a building, Vondie House struggled to get up and running after the split. There were building code and fire code issues with this former special care home it moved into in the fall of 2024. In December 2024, numbers compiled by the province showed Vondie House only half full lower than hospices in other cities because of the building issues. Is that number accurate? I really don't know. Jack, I'm not sure. I don't know what the numbers are. We're focused on just providing the care that our community needs. The renovations to bring the building up to code ran late. This email shows occupancy from May to December last year was just 37%. In April, the Deputy Minister of Health warned the board it had to have all six beds operating by June 30th of this year or the province would pull the funding. Renovations are still going on at Vondie House but Peggy McLean says they got the sixth bed into service in July. So how many like how many people have you been able to care for here? Oh I don't have the numbers right off to be honest with you. I don't have the numbers. Okay are there any here now? Right now we don't have any patients. Joanna Dare is a former hospice director in Moncton who did work for Vondie House three years ago. This is a very dedicated group of people. I don't think that I could be as dedicated to a cause as they are because they rise above and beyond every challenge that they get. All I know is that our facility we've been full. Lozi says he'll keep making the case to the province that his numbers show he is deserving of public money. Last year, Horizon Health's Ethics Director Dr. Tim Christie conducted an investigation into why so many patients in Miramichi were ending up at Percy's Place. Why is there 125 to 4? And even the numbers now is skewed significantly to one versus the other. Makes you wonder why that is. Dr. Kamil Haddad was interviewed for that investigation. If you have 125 to 4 in a period of a year and a half, I can't remember the exact time, but when Tim Christie was here, And that's the question I raised with him. I said, Tim, if that doesn't give you pause about what's going on, I don't know what will. Horizon Health refused to let us see the ethics report, but gave us this letter, which it sent to people in the community concerned about hospice referrals. It said patients and families were not consistently told about all their end-of-life options, and that Horizon's CEO and Chief of Staff met with doctors to confirm those conversations would be held. For now, the two hospices will keep operating, holding fundraisers in a community that's not sure what to make of it all. A lot of people just wonder what's happening. There's a lot of confusion about what's happening. We've had many challenges, but I'm really proud to say that we're super resilient. We just, whatever challenges we've faced, we've met them and we're extremely grateful to be able to still provide in all of this time the continuity of care that we do. The Premier plans to visit both hospices soon. We're working with the community because the government funds Bondi House now as the result of a successful competition, but we're engaged with the leadership at Percy's Place to see what might be possible. If they choose not to fund us, we're going to continue to operate with the support of the community and our foundation. How can the foundation afford to keep it going? I mean, the costs are huge. Our foundation is adequate to fund this place. So you'll keep going regardless? Regardless.