By Dan Maclennan, Campbell River Courier-Islander Newspaper
A plan by the Vancouver Island Health Authority to add 40-50 new Alternation Level of Care (ALC) beds in the future is too little and too slow, says the city's Seniors Advisory Commission.
Commission vice chair Lee Rumley, (shown at right) told city council Tuesday that VIHA could help immediately by funding existing empty private care beds.
"We have 11 empty beds in our community that are not funded by VIHA and we still have 25 people in hospital waiting for placement," Rumley said. "We have people waiting in our hospital, in very much less than desirable circumstances, and not receiving the quality of care we're all entitled to."
In an effort to win regional support for the plan to build new hospitals in Campbell River and the Comox Valley, VIHA officials promised last year to create 40-50 new beds in the Campbell River area. A mix of complex care, assisted living and 'light dementia' beds are anticipated sometime before the opening of the new Campbell River Hospital in 2015.
But that pledge doesn't begin to address local needs, Rumley said.
"Our community of Campbell River is in a critical situation with a wait list of 75 residents for complex residential care - including 25 persons currently in inappropriate placements in Campbell River Hospital - and 53 residents for Assisted Living," she said. "These numbers have continued to increase annually. This is a total of 128 people and we're looking at planning for perhaps 40 to 50."
The commission called on city council to tell VIHA of the immediate need to allocate funding for an additional 50 complex care and assisted living beds in Campbell River.
"The acute care hospital is not the place where people requiring residential care or services should be," Rumley said. "It's not funded and not staffed to meet the requirements of people (needing) these types of services. If you're living in the acute care hospital, you're probably looking at living in a two or four-bed ward. Often times this means there is no toilet facilities in that ward. You have to go down the hall. You don't have the privacy of using toilet facilities. There's very little recreational activities, things that are part of your daily living in community care facilities. There's also the noise of the call bells going off, announcements all the time in the hospital. This, as an acute care patient, is usually on a short-term basis, but for people (living) in the hospital awaiting beds, they are there probably for a minimum of six months. It can go on up to 12 months.
"These figures are not just statistics. These are real people we are talking about. These are people like myself, like yourselves, your parent, or your spouse."
City Council unanimously passed a motion calling on VIHA to immediately fund an additional 50 complex care and assisted living beds in Campbell River.
VIHA officials say they don't have the resources to fund any of the current private care beds in the community.
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