Tree Fest 2015

TREEFEST 2015 – RIVERVIEW HOSPITAL SITE, COQUITLAM, BC

The Silver Lindens are nearly a century old. A family of elephants could shelter under the canopy of the tall Smooth-Leaf Elms.  For 22 years, Treefest has celebrated these and the hundreds of other remarkable trees as well as the historic buildings and landscapes of Riverview. 

Treefest will be held on Saturday, September 19th from 11 am to 4 pm.  It is hosted by the Riverview Horticultural Centre Society in partnership with the City of Coquitlam and the Burke Mountain Naturalists.

Treefest is a celebration of environmental stewardship. The day will be filled with family-oriented activities. The always popular arborist-led Tree Tours will be held on the hour; plus a Children’s Walk. Well-known Vancouver heritage consultant Donald Luxton will lead a tour of some of the Heritage Buildings (exterior only).  Blackberry Tea will be served in the Serenity Garden by Maple Creek Streamkeeper volunteers. The SPARC antique radio museum will be open for visitors, and the hosts of the History Bus Tours will offer insight and stories on Riverview/Essondale history. Bus seating is very limited and can be reserved with a $2 donation.

Since 1992 the Riverview Horticultural Centre Society has increased public awareness of the Riverview Lands in Coquitlam.  The Society’s goal has been to have the site preserved for its original purpose of supporting people with mental illness and to protect the Riverview landscape and collection of trees for horticultural education, retention of urban green space and public community uses. 

The future of Riverview is uncertain.  The public process conducted by BC Housing continued this year.  More information should be available in September.  Riverview has historically been a sanctuary for the mentally ill.  It is hoped that it can once again be a refuge for people living with mental illness. 

The Treefest site is outside the HenryEsson Young (“HEY”) Building, accessible from the Lougheed Highway at the Colony Farm Road or Orchid Drive entrances.  Banners and signs will mark the way and maps of the Riverview grounds are available online at rhcs.org.
For more info visit Coquitlam Treefest   or call 604-927-3583 or 604-290-9910.

Donna Crosby, RHCS    

Phone 604-939-4064

Email    donna@rhcs.org

Caresse Selk, City of Coquitlam

Phone 604-927-3583

Email     cselk@coquitlam.ca

Open House #4 over and done with

My critique would be that the moderator should have moderated the questioning from the public much better. One public speaker actually was able to speak twice  ☹ 
As I expected none of the speakers wavered far away from the governments narrow position of the site must make at least enough money to balance the books. And sadly most of the public speakers had no questions or answers to the government's very narrow position of "break even"

       Sadly the buildings are rapidly deteriorating while all this rhetoric is going on, and if a decision is made to preserve many of the buildings, they will cost a small fortune to re purpose and restore.  No mention of other government departments has been forthcoming in wanting to use the site; actually I have no idea if the bureaucrats involved have been shopping the site around to the various departments.  Preferably health care in its many facets should be continued on the site since the buildings were designed and built with those goals in mind., 111 years the site has been used for health care, hopefully another 111 is in its future.

Riverview panel gets an earful   "Some amount of development is going to have to happen"

My answer to "Some amount of development is going to have to happen" is NO, actually if the existing buildings are restored they should generate more than enough income to "break even"; just have to find some long term stable rental, leasing arrangements with various health care groups. 

 Not impressed with the analogy of using East Lawn's rough restoration price of 30 million, and then trying to put that cost into building condos, apartments, etc to pay for it. What about just putting 30 million into a East Lawn conversion?  No mention of that; typical frontier mentality, knock everything down and start again.  Proper building restoration is becoming a lost art in British Columbia; need to get the technical schools involved on the site, and teach the new generations how to restore buildings properly.
Tired of hearing that these building do not meet today's seismic standards, many of these building have witnessed some good shakes through the years, and no damage was ever reported.  Cannot say that about newer buildings, since they have not been tested yet. 

I will hope that there is more information and opportunity to provide input to be placed upon the RenewingRiverview site soon.

The meeting is available on video:   Riverview Open House #4 - Panel Discussion    2:48:34
 Also view video clips from the prior Open Houses

Hirings

Riverview job posting raises red flags

Time will tell if this is a good thing or a bad thing.  Must remember what B.C. Housing's mandate is...

Fits well with an older posting 

I find it interesting though that the government was crying poverty, and looking for ways to reduce their costs at Riverview,; and now all of a sudden there is a flurry of activity, which is NOT the way to reduce costs.  Tart the place up a bit, before the fire sale?

Open house 4 date set

So all along the website stated:
Open house 4 – Creation of Vision Process
Open house 4 – Creation of Vision Process  
Open house 4 – Panel Discussion – [ site changed description on May 19 2015, thanks to Internet Archive Wayback Machine] for saving the files.   Apparently the rules have changed we were told all along that this Open House 4 would actually be where the public would get to see all the condensed comments, and have a final say if we agree with them. Now we are going to be bored to death with four talking heads, justifying their existence in this world, by ranting about who knows what.

So  Open House 4 now relegated to a panel discussion will be on,  Wednesday, June 10, 2015

TIME:
6:30pm – 7:00pm – Sign in
7:00pm – BC Housing Introduction
7:10pm – 9:30pm – Panel discussion

PLACE: Executive Plaza Hotel,  405 North Rd, Coquitlam


Out with the Creation of Vision Process and in with the Vision Already Created Process, by four talking heads.

 Moderator will be: Gordon Price  hey you can E-Mail him. He has a wikipedia page   apparently Tweets sometimes too.

Dr. Julian Somers

Darrell Burnham, (Scroll to Bottom of page) Chief Executive Officer, Coast Foundation Society. Hey you can E-Mail him if you want.


Brent Toderian  who also Tweets sometimes.

Tsur Somerville   and more about him



Update:   Last round of Riverview consultation is next month  [Note: sad to hear from Michael Flanagan that the Gov. still does not want to have an acute mental health care component at the hospital.  ]
And after a much anticipated long wait the Third Open House Report is now available for your perusal.

And as everyone is waiting for the final outcomes of this study in social intercourse, not far away another announcement:  $260-million RCH redevelopment a game changer for mental health

RCH the new Riverview?  A government that is not looking properly at the costs, considerably cheaper to create many of the wants at Riverview, than at RCH.

Riverview ramblings

During Mental Health Week, the local Coquitlam library, put on many events related to health care.
The Riverview Hospital Historical Society was very much a significant part of the program, and they had an entire room set up with artifacts from  various times in the hospital's history. I have created a small photo album of some of the displayed material

Dr. John Higenbottam gave an informative slide show about mental health care, and how important Riverview was, and should continue to be in the mental health of the residents of  British Columbia.
 Below are a few of the slides transcribed:

 The need for Specialized Psychiatric Hospitalization and Rehabilitation / Residential care

        It is also important to understand that the incidence rates for serious health problems have remained constant over the years which means that each year a number of new cases emerge, some of which will fall into the groups described above.

        This means not only that the system problems currently being experienced will continue over time, but that these groups will continue to grow.
Accordingly, the current system problems will increase over time rather than diminish.

Education and  Training

         Throughout its existence Riverview served as an education and training resource for mental health workers throughout the province. At various times, nurses, physicians, psychiatry residents and other members of the allied health professions received education and training on campus.

        Riverview's library and educational outreach programs were also valuable resources supporting mental health professionals throughout the province.

         With Riverview' closing a valuable mental health education and training capacity was lost which is having long term consequences for British Columbia's capacity to educate, train and support practitioners who work with the seriously mentally ill and severely addicted and mentally ill people.

---30---

Dr. John Higenbottam, created a report for the City of Coquitlam, not that long ago:
  Into the Future: The Coquitlam Health Campus
And more of the City of Coquitlam's position on Riverview can be found HERE

         I am not even in the business of health care, but as an outsider looking in; Dr. Higenbottam, made many of same observations as I have had.; but in essence closing Riverview was a huge mistake, and we are actually paying more now per patient, and the patient costs are more distributed and hidden from the public than before, with very little of the money allotted for the care actually being directed at the patients themselves. As it was when Riverview was operating.

        He also mentioned that apparently 2% of all Federal Government monies are given to each Province for mental health care, and the other provinces keep track of the spending, while in B.C. in just disappears into a big pot, and nobody knows if in fact the 2% is actually used for mental health care. 


And I just noticed that this is my 102nd posting here.
I can only hope that I make it to this lady's stage of life:  The oldest working nurse in the United States turns 90 and still going!

 Florence Nightingale Digitization Project

 The great and the good visit the asylum