‘It’s a crisis’: Seniors advocates disappointed after meeting N.B. premier, minister

There seems to be no consensus on how to get more long-term care beds in New Brunswick.

Advocates say they’re disappointed following a meeting on the state of seniors’ and long-term care with New Brunswick Premier Susan Holt and Health Minister John Dornan.

The meeting happened Thursday afternoon in Fredericton, and included advocates with the Long-term Care Alliance, Coalition for Seniors and the Moncton Seniors Federation, along with other government representatives.

Seniors care has long been an issue in the province, but there’s even more focus in recent days as almost 40 per cent of Horizon Health hospital beds are being used by alternate-level -of-care (ALC) patients – often seniors waiting for a long-term care placement. Hospital occupancy for this week was at 106 per cent.

The waitlist for a nursing home bed reached 1,129 in September, according to the Coalition for Seniors monitoring reports.

Of those, 485 were waiting in hospital.

Janice Seely, a special care home owner and president of the N.B. Special Care Home Association, said in the meeting advocates pushed the premier and minister on the creation of a designated department of seniors and long-term care.

“The Premier has expressed how she wants to fix home care. She wants to fix the length of time it takes to get an assessment. She wants to improve wages for people working in the caregiving sector. I mean, those are three main things, but they’re three of hundreds, hundreds of things that need to happen with some type of coordination and strategy and focus and plan,” she said in an interview with CTV News Atlantic Friday.

“And it just feels like we’re one of many things in the Department of Social Development that need attention. But we don’t have that dedicated voice, that dedicated department where we can actually pull up our sleeves, work together and co-design a long-term care plan that will work for New Brunswick.”

Cecile Cassista, who’s long spoken up for seniors’ rights, echoed those comments, saying she left the meeting feeling frustrated.

“I’m hoping that we can continue having that dialogue with the premier and the ministers,” she said. “We really want to reimagine what the seniors portfolio should look like in New Brunswick.”

At an announcement in Moncton Friday morning, Dornan said he didn’t agree that creating a department will make a difference, but they are making progress fixing gaps that Seniors Advocate Kelly Lamrock identified in his report on seniors care, released 18 months ago.

“Creating a department does not fix the problem. It’s putting the proper resources, manpower into the problem that the advocate told us about. I found quite inspiring. I think we can start on that well before creating a separate department, and, I believe the premier has taken that under advisement,” he said.

Dornan also said seniors waiting in hospital is not the whole picture and that improvements made to home care could allow more seniors the ability to age at home, instead of a hospital or long-term care home.

“We can talk about the hundreds that are in our hospital, but there’s thousands of senior people that could receive better care at home. As the advocate says, it needs to be more seamless right now. It’s not seamless,” he said.

Both Seely and Cassista say seniors waiting in hospital for long-term care is an immediate problem that needs to be made a priority.

“They’re just like, you know, put in different rooms, hallways, no water, basically just a holding area, which is not acceptable,” Cassista said.

According to Seely, one in five ALC patients died over the summer waiting for a long-term care placement.

She feels Holt cares about the issue, but says the problem needs political will to create big change and thinks a department could oversee that change.

“I’ve sat with many good people for many years that have said the same thing, and we are where we are now and it’s a crisis,” Seely said. “And I don’t know what it’s going to take, how much worse does it get before you realize that business as usual is not enough?”

There are more than 177,000 seniors in the province, according to 2021 Statistics Canada data.

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