5,000 new long-term care beds promised
Premier commits to help hospitals with backlog of beds, while promising cash for home care and nursing homes in new ‘action plan’
Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne is pitching a seniors strategy ahead of next year’s provincial election that includes thousands of new long-term care beds and extra care for nursing home residents.
Wynne visited the Sackville Hill Seniors Recreation Centre in Hamilton on Tuesday to outline a $155-million “action plan” designed to add 5,000 new long-term care beds across Ontario over four years — and 30,000 over a decade — while also helping seniors to stay in their homes longer if they so choose. New beds will begin opening next year in the “highest need” areas, with some reserved for “multicultural community” needs.
But it’s not yet clear how many might end up in Hamilton particularly, where hospitals are struggling with severe overcrowding, in part because of patients stuck waiting for long-term care spots or home-care services.
The Ontario Long Term Care Association said the news is “the most significant commitment” Ontario has made to support longterm care “in over a generation.”
They had actually called on the province last month to add 10,000 new beds over five years. It noted 32,000 seniors across Ontario — 3,200 alone in Hamilton and Burlington — are already on a waiting list for long-term care; and the provincial seniors population expected to double to 4.6 million the next 25 years.
“Although there is always more work to be done, we are very encouraged by the province’s commitment,” said association head Candace Chartier.
But the pre-election proposal was short on funding details or on an “immediate fix” for problems affecting thousands of seniors today, said NDP Hamilton Mountain MPP Monique Taylor.
“I don’t think they’re tackling the actual crisis folks are facing right now,” she said. “My office is inundated daily with folks coming to us about … sitting on waiting lists, or not having the supports they need in the community.”
The announcement also committed to increase daily nursing and personal support care available to long-term care residents, and reaffirmed plans to provide more home care to residents in the community.
Any changes that help free up hospital beds are “very welcome,” said Winnie Doyle, executive vice-president of St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton.
“We do have patients waiting in hospital for various types of care in the community. … Sometimes they are waiting for very extensive periods.”
The Hamilton hospital had 26 per cent more patients than hospital beds in August and continues to deal with overcrowding with flu season looming. On average, one in five medical and surgical beds at St. Joe’s is taken up by a patient who no longer needs to be there. Across Hamilton Health Sciences sites, the ratio is about one in six.
About 35 patients are waiting in St. Joe’s beds right now for long-term care, said Doyle.
The bed backlog trickles down to the Hamilton’s ambulance services, which had recorded 110 “code zero” events by the end of October, because of off-load delays at hospitals. A code zero event occurs when only one or no ambulance is available to respond to an emergency call.
Hamilton city council recently voted to spend an emergency $369,000 to temporarily put an extra ambulance on the road until spring to try to deal with the dangerous shortages.
“An extra 30,000 long-term care beds would certainly be helpful,” said Hamilton Mayor Fred Eisenberger, who attended the announcement.
“Freeing up hospital beds to ensure they’re used for medical care, rather than to house people, is certainly a big issue.”
Other elements of the Liberals’ evolving seniors action plan, first announced in 2013, include:
A one-stop shopping web portal for seniors seeking information about health, housing, legal issues and community involvement (ontario.ca/agingwell);
A new free “high-dose” flu vaccine program for seniors starting next year;
$15 million over two years to support “naturally-occurring” retirement communities, that is apartment buildings or complexes where seniors already congregate;
Creating a government-run personal support services agency next year — despite opposition from private and nonprofit providers concerned about duplication of services;
Eliminating four-bed rooms in existing long-term care homes, and redeveloping 30,000 existing beds in homes across the province to increase privacy, comfort and security.