About 1 in 7 hospital beds on P.E.I. holding a long-term care patient
‘The knee-jerk reaction is to go on a massive build’
MLAs expressed frustration at the legislature health committee meeting Wednesday, hearing about the number of patients in hospital acute care beds waiting for a space in long-term care.
Representatives of Health P.E.I. and the Department of Health and Wellness made a presentation to the committee about what is happening in long-term care in the province, and took questions.
The MLAs were presented with data that showed the number of days beds in each of the Island's hospitals were occupied by patients waiting for long-term care. Across the province, about 14 per cent of available hospital bed space was occupied in this way.
That varied by hospital, from a low of a little more than seven per cent at Prince County Hospital, to almost one in three at Souris Hospital.
Erin Bentley, senior public health policy and planning officer for the Department of Health, said the province is trying to balance adding long-term care beds with new initiatives designed to keep people at home.
"The knee-jerk reaction is to go on a massive build and try to build huge numbers of beds, but I think that won't solve some of the issues that we're facing today and it's not actually where the care, seniors' care, should be going," said Bentley.
"The philosophy is home first, so the best value for your dollar as well as what the residents want or what the clients want is to be able to stay at home as long as possible."
While Liberal MLA Gord McNeilly agreed that care at home was better than a long-term care bed, he noted the long-term care beds in his Charlottetown district are 100 per cent full
"Is this not a crisis point?" said McNeilly.
"If we do everything, we're still in trouble. We need to invest more. We need to invest [in] more beds, and the staffing is definitely an issue."
Green MLA Peter Bevan-Baker made reference to a 2021 internal review by Health P.E.I. that said a 35 per cent increase in beds was needed by 2025. He asked for what progress had been made on that, but the officials did not have those numbers at hand.
Bevan-Baker said that increase should have been about 375 beds.
"It seems as if we had been on track, to actually follow through with the recommendations from the 2021 internal report, this issue of bed blocking and the domino effect that has in so many other areas of our health-care system would have been alleviated if not completely resolved," he said.
Christina Phillips, director of seniors' health for Health P.E.I., said the plan in the internal report was based on population projections, and did not take into account new programs designed to keep people in their homes longer.
P.E.I.'s population projections have dramatically underestimated actual growth in recent years.
In 2022, the province projected growth for that year would be 1.6 per cent with the same growth for 2023, but the province grew at more than twice that rate.
Based on 2022 projections, the population of P.E.I. would have been 169,708 in 2023. The actual Statistics Canada estimate for the Island's 2023 population was 173,787.
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