Province ill-prepared for senior health care ‘crisis’, experts warn

Yorkregion.com
April 14, 2016
By Lisa Queen

Sarah breaks down in tears as she describes the four hours a day she spends changing diapers, cooking, cleaning, shopping and providing other care for her 80-year-old ailing mother as they wait for a long-term care bed.

“Terrible, terrible. It’s terrible for her, too, because she knows it’s too much for me and it’s too much for her,” said Sarah, who doesn’t want her or her mother’s names published because she fears it will affect her mom’s treatment in the system.

Her mother, Mary, receives home care about 10 hours a week, but it is far from enough for someone suffering from a number of health problems, including severe osteoarthritis, heart disease, incontinence and significant pain.

While the elderly York Region woman’s mind remains alert, she now has anxiety and mood swings as she tries to cope with her deteriorating health and watching her daughter struggle to care for her.

Mary had been on a waiting list for a long-term care bed since last fall and about four weeks ago was upgraded to crisis status by the Central Community Care Access Centre, an organization funded by the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care that connects residents to health services in the community.

This week, Sarah learned her mother was being offered a long-term care home bed.

Sarah, whose husband has cancer, has cut back her hours as a health care worker to care for her mother.

While she is applauding an announcement last week by associate health and long-term care minister Dipika Damerla at Bloomington Cove Care Community Centre in Whitchurch-Stouffville that will see the province upgrade more than 300 long-term care facilities across Ontario over the next nine years, Sarah is disappointed there was no mention of creating new long-term care spaces.

“There are so many people waiting. The system is terrible. I don’t think our government has given enough to long-term care. I really do think they are in crisis,” she said, adding the government also needs to add more staff highly trained in geriatric care.

“The staff from the (home care) agencies that come in, they do a great job, great job. But I think the system is really bad for the people who really need to get in (to long-term care). I’m basically told, ‘OK, now (my mother’s) in crisis, within a month she will get in because she really is in crisis’ and I’m told another time when I speak to the case worker that there are others in crisis, she has to wait her turn.”

The government continues to monitor the need for long-term care beds throughout the province while also ensuring the needs of residents in existing facilities are being met, Oak Ridges-Markham MPP Dr. Helena Jaczek, also minister of community and social services, said.

“We want to make sure that residents of all long-term care homes throughout the province, such as those residing at Bloomington Cove, have facilities that are up to current standards and feel as much like home as possible,” she said in an email, adding more than 30,000 beds in the 300 facilities will be upgraded.

That means making improvements to things such as wheelchair accessibility, air conditioning and room for rehab and physio programs, as well as improving the overall comfort and design of long-term care spaces, she added.

Facilities approved for redevelopment will receive a construction subsidy, which involves receiving funding per bed, per day for 25 years, starting with admission of the first resident meeting applicable conditions, Jaczek said.

The fact the province is investing in existing long-term care facilities and thinking about seniors is fabulous, said Tazim Bhanji, program manager for seniors programs with Markham-based Social Services Network, a charitable organization providing programs for the South Asian community.

But the announcement is not enough to address the ballooning senior population, she said.

Between 2011 and 2031, York Region’s senior population will increase by 148 per cent, almost four times faster than the overall population, according to a report called Towards a Seniors Strategy, released by the region last year.

Seniors will make up 21 per cent of York’s population in 2031, up from 12 per cent in 2011.

What’s more, York seniors are living longer than the provincial and national averages, thanks, in part, to the region’s high quality of life.

Life expectancy in York is 84.1 years, compared to 81.5 years in Ontario and 81.1 years in Canada.

“We are not really ready for the population that is going to be facing us in the next decade. The important issue here is, in the next 10 years there will be more seniors requiring services. So, how are we going to take care of the seniors who are not accessing the services at present?” Bhanji said.

“Absolutely, the government should be creating (new) long-term care beds and affordable housing and independent living. The government should be looking into those aspects, I don’t want to say instead of (renovating existing facilities) but in addition to. It’s absolutely not enough because the government has to be cognizant of what is coming in the next decade.”

Loren Freid, CEO of the Alzheimer Society of York Region also praised the government for investing in existing infrastructure, but is frustrated the province failed to address other needs of the growing senior population.

“I think what the province did, they went halfway. It’s important to provide investment into existing long-term care in order to ensure standards are met and we’re all in  favour of that and that’s great,” he said.

“The other side of the coin to that, there needs to be an investment into more beds and more dementia-specific beds. And if we’re talking about dementia, more programming right across the board - programming that would help to mitigate the progression of the disease and to slow down people going into long-term care.”

With the growing senior population, action is needed now, Freid said. “In 10 years, there will be more people in the province over the age of 65 than under the age of 15. And nowhere do we see that situation more pronounced than in York Region,” he said.

“People age generally well and dementia is not a normal aspect of aging, but age is the most significant risk factor for dementia. We need to see a greater investment in all kinds of dementia programing.”

Gila Martow, Conservative MPP for Thornhill, isn’t impressed with the government’s announcement.

“This announcement is actually a re-announcement because they announced last year they were renovating some long-term care beds in the province. This is only 300 (facilities being renovated). We have 24,000 people on a waiting list for a bed and this isn’t new beds, this is renovating beds and it’s over nine years,” she said.

“We need to see the beds renovated and we need to see new beds. It’s not enough.”

She believes the government made the rosy announcement “out of the blue” to overshadow a week of public thrashing over the Liberals’ fundraising tactics.

“Those of us who are down at Queen’s Park day after day, you sort of see these things, that there’s a horrific press day and the next day there is an announcement on something sunny, completely off topic, to try and change the channel,” she said.

“I don’t want to say that these beds are not going to be renovated, but nine years is an awfully long time just to renovate 300 (facilities) ... I think we could do a lot more and I think we could do it a lot faster and a lot better.”

Not providing enough long-term care beds results in bottlenecks in hospitals when seniors remain there rather than being admitted to a nursing homes, Martow said.

Despite Martow’s criticism, the province is focused on the 30,000 long-term care beds that are in serious need of redevelopment and bringing them up to current standards to improve safety and quality of life for residents, Newmarket-Aurora MPP Chris Ballard said.

The province is also examining broader long-term care needs of Ontario residents and is committed to assisting seniors age at home and age along a continuum of care before they require long-term care homes, he said.

“When we look at York Region, we have built about 300 new beds since 2003. So, it’s not like nothing has been done in York Region. There’s 300 new beds and there are a number of beds that we’re looking at refurbishing ... You can’t build new facilities while the old ones crumble,” he said.

“This is top of mind for a lot of residents in Newmarket and Aurora ... I will stay on top of that to make sure Newmarket-Aurora gets its fair share of redevelopment and new beds as we move forward.”

Funding is coming from a $160-billion investment in public infrastructure over 12 years.

Since 2003, 10,000 new spaces in long-term care homes have been created and just more than 13,500 older long-term care spaces have been renovated.