More supports for seniors needed in rural B.C.: advocate

More seniors are living in rural B.C. per capita than in urban centres, according to seniors advocate Isobel Mackenzie.

And that percentage is expected to rise from 25 to 30 per cent over the next decade, putting a strain on rural services for people ages 65 and over.

“Seniors everywhere experience difficulties related to aging, but as I've travelled the province and examined the data, it's clear that people who live far from urban centres face even greater obstacles because they have fewer services and resources to support them,” Mackenzie said after releasing the report Resilient and Resourceful: Challenges Facing B.C.'s Rural Seniors.

The report concludes that rural B.C. has a proportionately higher and faster growing seniors population with fewer resources and services when compared with the urban seniors population.

Mackenzie said that seniors living in the Northern, Interior and Vancouver Island health authorities had a lower life expectancy than seniors living in the more urban Vancouver Coastal Health and Fraser Health authorities.

Mackenzie has called on the B.C. government to develop a series of strategies aimed at supporting seniors living in rural communities.

“There needs to be a more cohesive plan developed that looks across all domains of healthy aging, housing, transportation, income, health care and community supports,” she said.

According to a recent demographic report, 44.3 per cent of people living in Parksville on Vancouver Island are age 65 and over — the highest percentage in Canada.

Overall, 20 per cent of British Columbians are 65 and over.