Family struggles to move mother across country to B.C. care home

Kelowna residents Darla Brown and Nikki Drinkwal‐ ter fear their mother's mental health is getting worse by the day. The 71year-old, who is blind and partially paralyzed, is on the other side of the coun‐ try, in Crapaud, PEI, where she lives alone in a subsi‐ dized care home following the recent death of her husband.

"She's depressed and she's lonely," said Drinkwal‐ ter. "A lot of our [phone] con‐ versations are very quiet, she doesn't have a lot to talk about. She's depressed, and she doesn't want to be where she's at."

"She hasn't had visitors," Brown added. "It's very un‐ fortunate."

Brown and Drinkwalter have been trying to move their mom, Elaine Guyan, to a similar care centre in B.C. so she can be closer to family and hopefully improve her wellbeing.

They thought it would be a seamless transition, but over the past two years they say they've run into a series of bureaucratic challenges including residency require‐ ments and extensive waitlists - that they fear have ren‐ dered the move insurmount‐ able.

"We've been directed to different agencies, different people, and they're all very sympathetic to the cause but at the end of the day they say they can't do anything about it," said Brown.

Provincial officials familiar with their situation have ac‐ knowledged their circum‐ stances are uniquely chal‐ lenging, while public health advocates say their circum‐ stances shine a light on glar‐ ing holes within B.C.'s assis‐ ted living sector, particularly ongoing capacity challenges.

"I talk to families that are confronted with this all the time," said Terry Lake, CEO of the B.C. Care Providers Asso‐ ciation. "I really empathize with people in this situation, but the reality is, even if they qualified to access assisted living in B.C., there's simply a lack of capacity."

CBC News has reached out to B.C.'s Ministry of

Health for comment.

Assisted care road‐ blocks

Health care falls under provincial, not federal, juris‐ diction in Canada, meaning subsidized care patients in one province can't simply be transferred to a similar facil‐ ity in another.

Brown and Drinkwalter say the biggest challenge for getting their mom onto a waitlist for subsidized assis‐ ted care in B.C. is the province's three-month resi‐ dency requirement, which applies to all community care services in the province.

That requirement can be waived under certain circum‐ stances, including if the pa‐ tient has no loved ones or family supports nearby. How‐ ever, the daughters said their application was denied by In‐ terior Health.

Their other alternative is to move Guyan to B.C. and pay for her to live in private care and then apply to be on the waitlist once she is offi‐ cially considered a resident. However, they would have to keep her in private care until she's accepted, which could take years.

"To pay for a private facil‐ ity for two years minimum, that's going to be $36,000 a year - we can't afford that," said Brown.

B.C. Seniors Advocate Isobel MacKenzie acknowl‐ edged these cases can be challenging for families but said qualification criteria is in place to prevent people from abusing the system.

"Their only option would be to pay privately for that care, which could be quite expensive," she said.

"It's challenging ... [but] what you don't also want to do is set up a situation where I can't get into my long-term care home in another province, or it's more expen‐ sive in another province, and so I come to British Colum‐ bia, and what about the British Columbians that have been waiting on that waitlist," she added.

Capacity challenges

According to B.C.'s latest se‐ nior services report, there were 1,055 seniors waiting for subsidized assisted living in 2023, marking a 34 per cent increase from the previ‐ ous year. Interior Health's waitlist increased by 29 per cent.

The report also noted the total of publicly funded longterm care beds fell by 12 per cent over that time.

Lake, who is also a former health minister, says the ca‐ pacity challenges mean fami‐ lies like Guyan's can't count on getting a unit anytime soon, even if they manage to meet residency requirements and get on a waitlist.

"The system simply is not keeping up with demand," he said. "It's all about capacity, because people who have lived in British Columbia all their lives face the same problem when they need as‐ sisted living."

"That's where we are with health care in this country, it's rationed and these very difficult questions of fairness have to come into play when it comes to allocating these resources," Lake said.

A cautionary tale

Lake says the best thing fami‐ lies can do is to make caregiving plans and arrange‐ ments ahead of time as their loved ones age.

"It's often when people fall off the cliff of health-care needs that they're confron‐ ted with difficulty accessing the system," he said.

In the meantime, Brown and Drinkwalter hope the health authority will recon‐ sider waiving the residency requirement for their mom so she can be put on a wait‐ list and eventually be trans‐ ferred to B.C. when her name is called.

"We're not shopping around, we're her family, and we want her here," said Drinkwalter.

"I can't imagine we're the only ones going through this," Brown added.