Care-home crunch snares 1,000 Manitobans Advocates warn it’s not about numbers By: Katie May Posted: 6:55 PM CDT Wednesday, Mar. 27, 2024

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This article was published 27/03/2024 (530 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

More than 1,000 Manitobans are waiting for a long-term care bed in the province — a sign that many families are struggling to find the right fit for their loved ones.

“It means we probably have a lot of families that are deeply in trouble trying to support individuals,” said local long-term care advocate Joyce Kristjansson.

As of mid-March, there were roughly 1,062 Manitobans on waiting lists for beds at a publicly funded long-term care facility of their choice anywhere in the province, according to figures provided by each health region and compiled by the Free Press.

Of that number, about 897 people were waiting for a personal-care home bed to open up close to home, in their local health region.

The data comes as no surprise to Kristjansson, a retired registered nurse who worked in long-term care. It’s well known that wait lists are long and hospital patients go to the front of the line, creating another bottleneck in the health system.

As the current executive director of the Association of Regulated Nurses of Manitoba, Kristjansson said it’s not just about adding more beds, but about having the kinds of services that seniors — and younger residential-care recipients — need.

“Absolutely, there’s need for more spaces in long-term care, but I’m actually quite concerned about the state of the current facilities… and how many of them are in poor repair because funding hasn’t been provided to keep them up,” she said.

Private long-term care is available for those who can afford it; they are not reflected on provincial wait lists.

The number of long-term care beds Manitoba needs has been a “moving target,” Kristjansson said, coupled with the constant demand for nurses and aides to staff them.

“If we added a thousand beds to the system, let’s say, we would be needing somewhere around 300 nurses. They don’t exist. So that’s one of the pieces we need to look at as we try and figure out, how do we build care services that will meet the needs of the people, and that we can actually sustain?”

Manitoba has fewer than 10,000 licensed personal-care home beds.

When the Progressive Conservatives took office in 2016, they promised to add 1,200 new long-term care beds — a promise the party renewed in the leadup to last fall’s provincial election. Last summer, the Tories announced plans to build six new personal-care homes: four in the Interlake-Eastern health region and two in Winnipeg.

One of those projects, a 95-bed facility for Lac du Bonnet, has been confirmed by the NDP government with construction set to begin this year. Premier Wab Kinew hasn’t set a target for new personal-care home beds in Manitoba; he’s said more details about the government’s long-term care spending are coming in next week’s provincial budget release.

The number of people waiting “not only represents a significant bottleneck in our health-care delivery but also has a profound impact on the quality of life for those waiting and their families,” said Gladys Hrabi, CEO of the Manitoba Association for Residential and Community Care Homes for Everyone.

“It speaks to a broader issue of accessibility and the necessity for systemic changes to meet the growing demands of our aging population,” within the health-care system, Hrabi stated in an email, adding MARCHE is advocating for alternative care models and ways to expand the capacity of existing long-term care homes.

The shortage of long-term care spots and staff is a national problem, as thousands of Canadians wait for residential placements, said Jodi Hall, CEO of the Canadian Association for Long Term Care, adding it should be addressed alongside Canada’s housing crisis, and considered not only as health care but as housing for an aging population.

“We absolutely are housing, and we’re in a crisis when you look at the wait lists across the country,” Hall said.

The national organization has been lobbying federally for a return to funding agreements with the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. that allowed new long-term care residences to be built decades ago. They also support a national health human resources strategy that would look at long-term care projections.

“All of this as a matter is urgent,” Hall said. “Even though we have 13 different long-term care systems and health-care systems across the country, it’s important that we do think big picture and that we work together.”

katie.may@freepress.mb.ca