STEWARDSHIP • VERMILION PARISH • ESTABLISHED 1983
Vermilion Health Care Center:
a legacy worth carrying forward.
Before it was a responsibility I carried, it was part of my childhood—a place where family, care and community were never separate things.
Some of my earliest memories of Vermilion Health Care Center are not board meetings or financial reports. They are lunches in the cafeteria with my father, visits with residents, time in the recreation room with its cockatiel and bumper pool table, and walking the halls beside him.
Three families. One local vision.
Vermilion Health Care Center was founded in 1983 through the combined strengths of three local families: Breaux, Latour and Pleasant. Dr. Thomas “Tom” Latour brought experience in geriatric psychiatry. Vern Pleasant brought nursing-home experience. My father, H. Lynn Breaux, brought his real-estate knowledge and the land on which the center was built.
The first employees began preparing the center to welcome residents in May 1983. From the beginning, the purpose was local: to care for people close to home, surrounded by the language, food, faith and familiar rhythms of South Louisiana. The center also became the first nursing home in the area with a secure Alzheimer’s unit.
The example my parents gave me.
My father helped create the place, but both of my parents helped carry it. My mother, Alice “Sue” Breaux, served on the Board throughout the center’s history and later served as Board President. She still attends meetings and remains an important connection to the standards and relationships that shaped VHCC.
When my father died in 2018, my brothers and I inherited his stock and began attending the monthly board meetings. I understood business and numbers, but I knew very little about healthcare. What I found was an exceptional longtime staff that understood the residents, the work and the responsibility better than any report could explain.
Leadership began with listening—to my mother, to the families who came before us and, above all, to the people doing the work every day.
A responsibility tested immediately.
In January 2020, I succeeded my mother as Board President. Two months later, COVID arrived. The next two years were turbulent in ways none of us could have anticipated. The pandemic tested nursing homes everywhere, but it also revealed the depth of commitment inside ours.
The staff kept VHCC moving through an extraordinarily difficult season. They cared for residents, supported families and protected the character of the center under pressure. I pray we never experience another pandemic like it, but I will never forget what their steadiness taught me about leadership.
The right structure for the next chapter.
RightCare Health Services began managing VHCC on February 1, 2023. Together, we modernized dated operating practices and vendor relationships while building on something that was already here: an experienced staff with deep loyalty to the center and its residents.
Administrator Mandy Henry and her team accepted the challenge. With RightCare’s guidance and the daily work of the staff, VHCC’s CMS rating rose from 2 stars to 5 stars in two years. That change matters because it reflects stronger systems, greater consistency and a team willing to keep improving.
Joie de vivre is part of the care.
Clinical quality is essential, but a good life is more than a rating. At VHCC, Cajun culture is not decoration. It is lived through the food, music, faith and celebrations that help residents remain connected to who they are.
There is a rosary and Catholic Mass every Friday. Seafood Fridays and Cajun meals feel familiar. Crawfish boils, Mardi Gras celebrations and monthly birthday parties—with music by Clifton Bernard—bring people together. These traditions create something difficult to measure but easy to recognize: joie de vivre, the joy of living.
Continued excellence.
I am proud to be affiliated with Vermilion Health Care Center. We have matured and evolved so much in a short time, and I knew that progress was possible. Now we prepare to grow with Vermilion Parish.
My vision is continued excellence and refinement—offering the best to residents who deserve the absolute best. The work will keep changing, but the standard should not: strong care, responsible leadership, local ownership and a culture that still feels like home.