The concerned citizens for Broadacres are working to put together a steering committee to lobby the government for changes to senior health care.
“The purpose of this steering committee is to essentially plan and co-ordinate the ongoing initiatives and action of this very concerned group of citizens,” said Linda Shilling, who moderated the meeting.
Shilling said that, since the meeting at the library last month, a letter to the minister of health went out and solicited a response, though she said it wasn’t satisfactory. The provincial ombudsman has been contacted to review the process by which the contract is awarded. She said that they would look more at whether it was within regulations.
They have also drafted a press release, as well as a letter to the CEO of Interior Health Authority (IHA).
“To try and get a response to a range of questions and concerns, Dr. Halpenny has gotten back to the steering committee, he’s willing to take a look at whatever’s presented, however he’d like it to go through the usual channels,” she said.
“That includes having it sent to Ingrid (Hampf).
“There’s lots more to be done, lots more to consider, a lot more ideas that need to be heard,” she added.
The group met on May 31 at the GFSS auditorium and included a representative from the Care Providers Association of British Columbia (BCCPA), David Hurford.
“We all saw the news about the Tim Horton’s, a case in Vancouver where the Royal Columbia Hospital had to use the Tim Horton’s ward to treat people because of the ER was packed,” Hurford said.
“At any given time about 10 to 15 per cent of all the acute care beds are filled with long-stay patients, generally seniors. “
Hurford said that the next day the BCCPA called around to a number of residential care assisted living facilities around the hospital.
”We found forty empty beds within a fifteen-minute radius of the hospital,” he noted.
He said the problem is that these beds are not taken into account in the system.
Hurford said that the efforts in Grand Forks reminded him of the struggle that Campbell River went through with Interior Health.
In that case, residents demanded to know how many long term care patients there were waiting in acute care beds. IHA eventually released the numbers and they were a lot higher than previously thought. The city had the impression that the number of people in the hospital was the number waiting.
“That was roughly 20, 25 seniors that they knew of just around the community who’d been accessed and were waiting for care,” he said.
“At the end of it they finally got the answer and the answer was 82. So there was a lot more people just waiting at home.”
Hurford said the committee is doing exactly what it should, which is continuing to ask questions.
Hurford did say he was happy to hear when IHA put out the contract for more care beds in B.C.
Laura Lodder, said that so far IHA hasn’t given any indication they would release the numbers for Grand Forks.
“They will not tell us how many there are so the only way you can find out is if somebody is on the waiting list and they are told, ‘you’re fourteenth, you’re second to whatever, but they won’t disclose how many people are waiting,” Lodder said.
The committee released possible next steps including comparing information from other communities and other concerned citizens and trying to gain a better understanding of IHA’s intentions for services in the Grand Forks area.