Canada's Medical System: Collapsing

Calgary Herald
MICHELLE LANG
September 16, 2009


Health board to close 350 beds



Seniors being moved out of hospitals

Alberta’s health system is expected to lose hundreds of hospital beds as the cash-strapped superboard enacts a three-year plan to create more community care for seniors, but closes beds when elderly patients vacate spaces in Calgary and Edmonton hospitals.

At a meeting late Tuesday, Alberta Health Services told health unions it will move 350 patients — many of them seniors waiting in hospital for a long-term care space to open — into continuing care options, such as home care and assisted living facilities.

However, union officials said the 350 hospital beds will be closed when the patients move into the new community-based spaces, with about half the closures occurring in Calgary and half in Edmonton.

Sources at the provincial superboard confirmed there are no plans to staff the vacated beds when the patients leave the spaces.

Nurses and other health workers said they were deeply disappointed with the announcement, which will be made public at a news conference today, saying there are already bed shortages in the province’s hospitals.

“This is bad news is terms of the impact on (hospitals),” said Heather Smith, president of the United Nurses of Alberta.

“We are going to have 350 fewer acute care beds than we currently have and that brings no relief for people in emergency rooms and hallways.”
Alberta Health Services officials refused to confirm the figures provided to its unions Tuesday.

“I won’t anticipate what we might announce (today),” said Roman Cooney, senior vicepresident of communications at the superboard.

Alberta Health Services is also expected to announce today that it will create 800 “community living” spaces in the next three years, such as assisted living, long-term care and home care for the growing number of seniors who can no longer live independently.

Nearly half of t he new spaces will be occupied by the patients who are now in hospital.

“We’re going to fund additional spaces in the community,” said Stephen Duckett, the superboard chief executive, in an interview with the Herald on Tuesday.









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