Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH) has confirmed its plans to open all 102 beds at the newly constructed Willingdon Creek Village residential care facility this spring.
Last fall the health authority said it would only commit to opening 85 beds at the new care facility, enough to accommodate seniors moving from Olive Devaud Residence. More beds would be added later as community need and operating budgets dictated.
In an email to the Peak, VCH public affairs officer Viola Kaminski confirmed the health authority’s plans, which include closing and moving six acute care beds from Powell River General Hospital, ones currently occupied by patients on the waiting list for residential care and assisted living, and opening the remaining 11.
Kaminski explained that moving the six beds would better meet the needs of elderly patients.
“By shifting the funding from acute care beds into beds at Willingdon Creek, we expect to shorten the waitlists for both assisted living and residential care—and more importantly—better match our resources to patient need in the community,” she added.
According to a 2012 report on seniors’ care from the BC Ombudsperson to the legislative assembly, seniors living in VCH were waiting on average 37 days after assessment for a place in government subsidized residential care and about 300 days for assisted living.
City of Powell River Councillor Maggie Hathaway applauded the move.
“I think it’s good news that those people in those beds will be getting the kind of care that is appropriate to their needs,” she said. The measure will help people who really need to be in residential care in order to get adequate social opportunities, she added, and “not be languishing in an acute hospital bed.”
Hathaway added that she thought there were a number of people in the hospital in that situation.
She said that she did not think the bed closures would have a drastic effect on acute care at the hospital as she could not recall hearing many reports of the hospital facing overcrowding, outside of stories of extended waits for emergency room service.
“But that relates to not enough family doctors in the community,” she said.
VCH staff has begun to train at the new facility and the health authority is preparing for a mid-to-late March opening.
Almost a sixth of BC’s population is over the age of 65 years and the number of seniors is expected to double over the next 20 years.
