GARY MacLEOD
I write this article out of a sense of frustration over the snail’s pace adopted by the McNeil Liberal government in addressing critical needs in long-term care (LTC). Staffing shortages are the norm, leading to cases of alleged neglect and abuse that occur 300 times each year across this province. There is mounting evidence of bedsores — mostly because of staffing shortages that allow for only one bath per week and elderly residents sitting in feces and urine, waiting long hours to have their incontinence pads changed. Some bedsores have resulted in deaths.
The ACE (Advocates for the Care of the Elderly) Team has been meeting with provincial governments of all stripes, as well as MLAs and bureaucrats, since 2006. We have asked for more funding, support and innovation in LTC. We declared in 2013 that LTC was in crisis.
The last comprehensive plan for LTC was created by the Progressive Conservatives, under premier Rodney MacDonald. It recommended 1,500 new beds by 2014 and the replacement of nine aging facilities throughout the province. In 2009, the NDP defeated the PCs and created 900 new beds, built three replacement facilities, then froze funding for LTC. With inflation factored in, this freeze amounted to a cut in funding. In 2013, immediately following electoral victory, newly minted Liberal Health and Wellness Minister Leo Glavine declared, “No more money for bricks and mortar for long-term-care beds!”
In 2016, the McNeil government cut $8 million from LTC funding and proudly announced that $50 million would be used to provide care at home instead.
In some facilities, this resulted in $5-a-day meal budgets, with the main course being hot dogs and Cheezies. Staffing shortages and cuts to nutrition and cleaning staff further led to more bedsores and suffering.
The ACE Team could not find any improvements in home care as a result of the new funding. The number of hours offered for in-home care did not change. The funding did not address the increasing need for care in-home and in LTC facilities, as the population ages.
The McNeil government has been more heavy-handed than any other government before it, and we are experiencing the deterioration of the entire health system since they took power.
The ACE Team has continued to meet with staff in the continuing care division of the Department of Health and Wellness. In 2015, the minister announced the division had started working on a five-year long-term-care plan. In 2018, Health Minister Randy Delorey announced the creation of the expert advisory panel on long-term care to do a report on how to achieve better quality of care for the aging. Only five of the panellists’ 22 recommendations have been completed after nine months, with no visible improvements to the deteriorating system.
In 2019, Mr. Delorey informed The ACE Team of new developments for long-term care and introduced us to his new executive director for continuing care, the third one for this division in four years. There were actually no new revelations, and things were at a standstill: the five-year LTC vision is still in the planning stages, five years after it was started.
On Jan. 17, the ACE Team met with a geriatrician who stated long-term-care beds were one of the last things needed to improve the quality of life for the elderly. He informed us that rather than creating new long-term-care beds, he will find more ways to keep people at home. His work will be in addition to the five-year plan and the expert advisory panel recommendations for long-term care. So, the shell game goes on and on, while people crowd into emergency rooms, suffer at home and in LTC facilities.
Meanwhile, in the last 14 years, Nordic and Asian countries report mounting success in their care for their elderly population. Nova Scotian families are crashing and burning trying to care for a loved one at home as our governments do little to innovate and solve our local need for care.
The ACE Team would like to report to all Nova Scotians that despite advocating in good faith for care as we age, we have been shown a shell game. There is no peanut under any of the shells. There never was.
Right now, Stephen McNeil is preparing to get elected again. There will be many announcements of appointments and spending, intended to pacify us all and buy our support. The appointment of the new deputy minister of health from Cape Breton is an example of these political games. Meanwhile, our publicly funded system is slowly being privatized under our noses — look at the P3 projects for health infrastructure.
We are all aging. We all need our publicly funded health system to be available when we need it. We understand there is a shortage of doctors and the problems it has created. But where are the urgent solutions to help us? It is not rocket science.
This government has done nothing meaningful to address the crisis in LTC in the last five years in power. Why? Why do we accept this? It is time for people to understand that unless we educate ourselves about what is happening, and take action to stop it, we will lose our cherished public health-care system.
You can start by getting outraged at the way our elderly population is being treated by this government. Demand immediate action that we can all see. Don’t give away your vote, without thinking long and hard about what is at stake for us all.
Gary MacLeod, Halifax, chair, the ACE Team
