In a report released Wednesday, seniors advocate Dan Levitt concluded that services for seniors changed significantly for the worse in the last five years.
However, Josie Osborne, B.C.’s new health minister, did not directly address the concerns raised in seniors advocate Dan Levitt’s report released Wednesday.
Osborne also did not answer questions from Postmedia on why the environment was worsening, what the B.C. government planned to do about it and whether the province would adopt Levitt’s recommendation to develop an “action-oriented, measurable cross-ministry seniors plan.”
Instead, Osborne laid out a list of work underway to improve seniors health care that included building new and replacement beds in long-term care facilities, increasing operating room hours to improve wait times for surgeries, hiring more home care workers and expanding home care programs.
The list provided no timeline for the work or specifics.
“We will keep working across government, and with the Office of the Seniors Advocate to ensure our work reflects the voices of seniors and their loved ones. There is more work to do, and we will continue strengthening our healthcare system so seniors have access to the care they need, when they need it,” Osborne said in a written statement.
The statement was provided late Thursday after the ministry had not responded to questions on Wednesday. Ministry officials did not respond to a request for an interview.
Waiting lists for knee and hip replacements for seniors increased 53 per cent and 59 per cent, respectively.
The number of seniors waiting for a publicly subsidized, long-term care bed last year increased 250 per cent compared with five years ago.
The number of applications for seniors subsidized housing last year was almost 60 per cent higher compared with five years ago, and only six per cent of applicants got a unit.
The province’s seniors population has grown 45 per cent over the past 10 years. By 2035, about 25 per cent of the population will be over age 65, according to the report.
“Unfortunately, despite government investment in seniors services, we continue to fall behind in meeting many basic needs. There is less home care, long-term care beds, rent subsidies and subsidized seniors housing available today per population compared to five years ago,” Levitt said in a statement.
Levitt noted that services offered by different ministries are “unco-ordinated, fractured and confusing” for people accessing them for the first time.
“This was foreseeable and avoidable,” said Day, who is the Conservatives’ critic for rural and seniors health.
Government-led initiatives, which add layers of bureaucracy, can’t keep up by themselves with the need for seniors’ housing and long-term care homes, argued Day.
The province should partner with the private sector and non-profits to help provide the additional spaces, he said.
More support is also needed to keep seniors at home as long as possible, he added.
“The population is aging and we are not keeping up,” said Lake, whose organization represents nearly 200 for-profit and non-profit long term care homes that provide 19,500 long-term care beds.
That represents two-thirds of the publicly subsidized beds in the province.
Lake said there have been some positives that resulted when cracks were revealed in long-term care during COVID-19, but the province isn’t keeping pace with the increasing demand for long-term care beds.
He noted 500 long-term care beds have been opened in the Interior in the past five years through a former program that allowed the for-profit and non-profit sectors to bid on the projects.
But he said his organization’s view is that the B.C. NDP government’s push to build facilities that will be owned and operated by government health authorities has been slow and expensive.
Lake, a former B.C. Liberal government cabinet minister, said his group would like to see the province start a more aggressive building program and open it up to bids in the private sector.
The association recommended the province implement a tax credit that would help seniors to get better aid to stay in their own homes longer; build 5,000 new long-term care beds by 2028; implement a continuous request-for-proposal model for long-term care providers; and create a redevelopment fund for aging long-term care infrastructure.
The seniors advocate’s report also highlighted some positive news: Seniors in B.C. are staying healthier and living longer. The percentage of seniors with complex chronic conditions has remained relatively stable over the past five years. For example, the percentage of seniors with dementia in B.C. has stayed steady at five per cent despite the growing population.
There are some slight decreases in hospitalization with fewer seniors waiting to be discharged either to long-term care or back to home with supports, and emergency department visits for people over age 65 have also been decreasing over the past five years.