Why are B.C.'s seniors waiting an average of 10 months to get into a long-term care home?
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The Province
7 hours ago
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B.C.'s failure to fund home care driving premature moves to overwhelmed senior-care facilities, experts warn
Unlike Ontario and Alberta, where home care is free, B.C. charges $10,000 a year for a senior making $31,000 a year to get only one hour of care a day Seniors advocate Dan Levitt's most recent report found that 12.5 per cent of seniors admitted to long-term care homes could have stayed in their own homes if they had got support to do so. Photo by NICK PROCAYLO / PNG As B.C. struggles to keep up with increasing demand for long-term care beds, the NDP has failed in recent years to move the needle on helping more seniors stay in their homes, advocates say. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Exclusive articles by top sports columnists Patrick Johnston, Ben Kuzma, J.J. Abrams and others. Plus, Canucks Report, Sports and Headline News newsletters and events. Unlimited online access to The Province and 15 news sites with one account. The Province ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on. Daily puzzles and comics, including the New York Times Crossword. Support local journalism. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Exclusive articles by top sports columnists Patrick Johnston, Ben Kuzma, J.J. Abrams and others. Plus, Canucks Report, Sports and Headline News newsletters and events. Unlimited online access to The Province and 15 news sites with one account. The Province ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on. Daily puzzles and comics, including the New York Times Crossword. Support local journalism. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors Seniors advocate Dan Levitt's most recent report found that 12.5 per cent of seniors admitted to long-term care homes could have stayed in their own homes if they had got support to do so. Yet the cost of home care remains prohibitive for many families. Unlike Ontario and Alberta, where home care is free, B.C. charges $10,000 a year for a senior making $31,000 a year to get only one hour of care a day. This has led to a 10 per cent decline in the number of seniors receiving home care over the past five years. 'We recommended that they eliminate the copayment altogether, but especially for people who are on the waiting list for long-term care, because we know that in jurisdictions like Alberta or Ontario where they don't have the copayment, people aren't moving into long-term care prematurely,' Levitt said. Essential reading for hockey fans who eat, sleep, Canucks, repeat. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. Please try again This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Levitt's report said the unaffordability of home care is increasing the strain on B.C.'s long-term care system, which is already facing a shortage of 2,000 beds and has a waiting list that has soared past 7,200 people. The advocate also found that housing a senior in a publicly subsidized long-term care home costs the province over $100,000 annually, compared to home care at $15,000 a year. 'We need to at least keep up with the demographics, because we're falling behind. And when we think about long term care, we may be able to bend the curve a little bit on demand. Really, it would be fractional compared to the number of beds that will be required for seniors who need long-term care.' The previous seniors advocate, Isobel Mackenzie, who has 20 years of experience in home care, said Thursday that the government has, for the most part, raised the amount spent on home care only by the rate of inflation, which is not enough for the increasing population of seniors. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. She said the focus should be on directly funding families to take care of their loved ones, which will help the government save money in the long term. 'There's no doubt that the we are going to need a lot more long-term care beds than the government currently is projecting to build,' said Mackenzie. 'We still could reduce the demand by looking at what would keep people out of long-term care. And what would keep them out of long term care would be high intensity care at home.' In 2023, Mackenzie found that 61 per cent of seniors didn't have access to home care in the 90 days before their admission to a long-term care home, despite the province spending $693 million on home care and related supports in the 2021-22 fiscal year. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Mackenzie estimated then it would cost the government $14,000 a year to provide an hour of home support a day to a senior while it then cost $60,000 annually to house a single senior in a long-term care facility. Budget 2025 greatly increased the amount directly spent on home care, from $45 million in 2024-25 to $146 million in 2025-26 and $163 million in 2026-2027. In a statement, the Ministry of Health defended its spending on both home care and long-term care, stating that it had increased the budget for long-term care to over $2 billion in 2023 and allocated $354 million over three years as part of the 2024 budget to expand home care, including $227 million to 'improve (the) quality and responsiveness' of home care and $127 million for services that provide non-medical supports. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. It said it has also spent $175 million on respite care and adult day services over the last five years and signed the Aging with Dignity bilateral agreement with the federal government in 2023, which will give B.C. $733 million over five years to spend on old-age supports. 'With more seniors opting to live at home longer, we believe that means less demand than there would otherwise be for services such as long-term care, alleviating pressures in those aspects of the health-care system,' said then health minister Adrian Dix in 2024. Mackenzie had told the Times Colonist following the announcement of more money for home care that she was concerned the funds were being used to increase staffing but not to reduce the costs for seniors to receive home care. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. This concern has borne out, says Brennan Day, Conservative seniors' health critic, with the percentage of seniors unable to get home care largely unchanged from 2023. 'They expect to lower the number of beds required by increasing home support and keeping people at home. But we haven't actually seen that play out in any meaningful way.' Jeff Moss, executive director of the Jewish Seniors Alliance of B.C., said the lack of seniors care is not new but that he is worried that decades have passed with no government implementing a solution. He said 65 per cent of Canadian seniors live on under $65,000 a year and can't afford the types of care that are offered in the province. 'We can't keep punting this down the road. We need to be able to address it, to actually deal with the crisis that we're in with the growing seniors population over the next 15 years,' said Moss. alazenby@ Read More For more health news and content around diseases, conditions, wellness, healthy living, drugs, treatments and more, head to – a member of the Postmedia Network. News Vancouver Whitecaps Sports Local News Vancouver Canucks
Vancouver Sun
6 days ago
- Vancouver Sun
Opinion: I do not want to spend my waning years staring out a window in an LTC facility. Is there an alternative?
The number of seniors on waitlists for publicly subsidized long-term care (LTC) in B.C. has increased from 2,381 in 2016 to 7,212 in 2025. That's a whopping 200-per-cent increase. Dan Levitt, B.C.'s senior advocate, has called on the government to invest in the creation of 16,000 new LTC beds, at an estimated cost of $16 billion, to offset the needs of an aging population. By 2036, almost a quarter of Canada's population will be over 65. But here's the thing. Seniors don't want to be sequestered in LTC. When I worked as a private caregiver in LTC, I never met one person happy to be there. I personally do not want to spend my waning years staring out a window in an LTC facility watching the world go by. And while proponents will highlight social interactions, activities, and the peace of mind of medical care to match needs, the reality is that LTC is not a home with familiar surroundings and a lifetime of memories. A daily roundup of Opinion pieces from the Sun and beyond. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder. The next issue of Informed Opinion will soon be in your inbox. Please try again Interested in more newsletters? Browse here. I am not alone. The 2024 Ageing in Canada Survey by the National Institute on Ageing reveals that 91 per cent of older adults in Canada would prefer to age at home. In Quebec, a 2021 study found that government costs for long-term care services delivered through home care would be less expensive than services delivered in LTC settings. Of course, B.C. is not Quebec, but as a general rule in most provinces, individuals pay rates based upon taxable annual income and services required — community nursing, meal support, etc. As care needs increase, so do costs. Private agencies can fill gaps in care support, but often their services are not covered by public monies. For those unable to continue to afford the high costs of private health care, publicly funded LTC often becomes the solution. It is the hardest decision any family can make. It was heart-wrenching when my father found himself in LTC as his needs grew beyond what home support could offer. In fairness, progress on the home care front has been made in B.C., but it is slow. The Vancouver Coastal Health Visits to Vancouver's Elders initiative , for example, has, since 2008, been providing integrated home-based primary care, nursing and rehabilitation services to a diverse population of moderate to severely frail homebound older adults. And last December, the Office of the B.C. Seniors Advocate released its Monitoring Seniors Services Report in which it reported that the Better at Home Program, which delivers transportation, housekeeping, meal programs and non-medical services to help seniors living at home was indeed providing more aid to seniors, but alongside this, the waitlist had increased 56 per cent over the past five years. These programs matter. According to a 2022 report by the Canadian Institute for Health Information, one in 10 newly admitted LTC residents potentially could have been cared for at home if there were supports in place. Just a note that one bed in an LTC facility, according to Levitt, costs the government $1 million annually. For a while, during the early days of the COVID pandemic, the conversation on how to improve elder care was top of mind. In Quebec and Ontario, as the army moved in to care for neglected seniors in LTC, our collective hearts ached and politicians made promises. But the discourse ended. Maybe it's time to revive it. Is investing in more LTC beds the answer — maybe, but what if the vision of the National Seniors Council became a reality? The council was created to look at strategies and recommendations for Canadians to age at home. Their final report in 2022 envisioned a country where everyone can maintain a quality of life as they age, with access to public funds and support to help offset the cost of aging at home. Jennifer Cole is a Vancouver-based freelance writer with a particular interest in senior issues related to long-term care, having worked as a private caregiver.
