Over 6,000 new care-home beds promised

CALGARY More than 6,000 beds will be added or replaced in a multi-year expansion of Alberta's publicly-funded continuing care facilities, the province announced Friday.

Over the next four years, $400 million in operational funding will be allocated across 24 Alberta communities as part of a new procurement process that will see operators pay for the capital cost to build new beds.

This year, 343 beds will be added in Calgary, Edmonton, High Level, Medicine Hat, Red Deer, Valleyview and Westlock — in addition to the 2,600 beds added in 26 communities in 2020.

“We need to add continuing care beds to move all patients through the whole system. Patients are not widgets. But when they are in the wrong place it is not the best care,” said Health Minister Tyler Shandro. “We need to build the right spaces, so that continuing care is there when the next patient needs it.”

Shandro explained the existing shortage of continuing care beds is causing significant delays in emergency and urgent care because continuing care patients are taking up beds and staff resources in hospital.

And the challenges are increasingly urgent as Alberta's aging population continues to grow, he added.

“The number of seniors in Alberta will double to 1.1 million by the year 2040,” Shandro said. “So we need to update our care because standards and the expectations of families are changing. And we need to use new approaches.”

Shandro added that increased funding directed to rural areas will also allow continuing care residents to remain closer to home.

“Through this work, more Albertans will have access to high-quality continuing care, a better quality of life and be closer to family and friends in the community they know and love.”

The addition of the 6,000 new and replacement beds, along with last year's 2,600 beds, will increase capacity in the system by up to 20 per cent in the next four years, officials said.

“Adding new beds to the system ensures that Albertans will be able to reside in a facility that provides them the right care at the right time, rather than at a hospital,” said Dr. Verna Yiu, president and CEO of Alberta Health Services.

“This increases our acute care capacity and ensures that the health-care needs of all Albertans are met in an appropriate setting.”

Friday's announcement comes one month after the province said it will begin phasing out shared “ward” rooms in long-term care facilities this summer as recommended in a review of the province's continuing care system.

The report by consulting firm MNP makes 42 recommendations that aim to improve the quality of life for residents in continuing care, including an expansion of home care services to keep more Albertans out of facilities.

David Shepherd, health critic for the Opposition NDP, said the provincial announcement did not address which levels of care would be provided through the $400 million in funding.

“I hope he (Shandro) will focus this spending on projects that meet Albertans' health needs, and not simply ones that maximize the operator's profit margins with lower levels of care, Shepherd said.”

Shepherd added that Alberta Health should have also presented a plan to address critical staffing shortages at health-care facilities, explaining how the Galahad Care Centre in a remote rural area east of Red Deer has been closed.

That closure, Shepherd said, has forced 18 seniors to move out of their community “because there are not enough staff to operate it safely.”

Mike Dempsey, vice-president for the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees, said Friday's announcement also did not address the low wages of continuing care workers that work at more than one centre to earn a living.