Exchange Sessions featuring Olivia Lunny

Imagine waking up in a hospital bed and being told by a doctor that you are well enough to leave, only to discover you cannot. Not because you want to stay, but because there is nowhere safe for you to go. No home-care support, no rehabilitation space, no long-term care bed.

This is unfortunately the daily reality for thousands of Canadians.

Being stuck in a hospital bed is a crisis from coast to coast. Our acute care hospitals are functioning as wildly expensive beds for vulnerable citizens awaiting a more suitable place to take them in.

A decade ago, policymakers fretted over this exact issue. Today, despite an aging population with increasingly complex needs and higher demand for hospital beds, the crisis has only deepened.

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: I made it four months without a girlfriend. Although I miss the sex, I have never felt more free! I’ve had overlapping girlfriends since the age of 13, and it’s like having a job for a guy like me. I’m always serving the woman, keeping her happy, giving her what she wants.

After my last break-up in June, I told my best friend I needed to stop serving princesses. He said “Well, you pick ’em! They can see you coming a mile away, and they’re ready.”

I start university this fall, and I swear I’m not going to end up in the same kind of messes with women in my life I always do. There’s a chance to start over, but I don’t know how to be anything different from what I am — a guy like my dad. He totally looks after my mom’s needs — but she loves it, and she looks after him in return.

I don’t know how to be a hard-headed guy who looks out for himself, like a few of my buddies who seem to get what they want with women. But I don’t see them finding any great relationships, either.