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Crucial need for hospice care beds

The Sunshine Coast needs at least four more hospice beds, as well as more residential care beds, more than 100 people heard at a community forum on palliative care recently.

The Sunshine Coast needs at least four more hospice beds, as well as more residential care beds, more than 100 people heard at a community forum on palliative care recently.

"The two hospice beds at Shorncliffe that support end-of-life needs are at 100 per cent occupancy rate and we always have patients in St. Mary's waiting to go into residential care," said Gerry Latham, director of clinical services for St. Mary's Hospital. "Right now there are six people in St. Mary's waiting for residential care beds."

As well, the two respite beds at Shornecliffe are at 100 per cent occupancy and booked weeks in advance.

While the focus of the medical system is to maintain people at home as much as possible, those in residential care now are older, frailer, and need more support, said Marina McBride, manager of residential care at Shornecliffe and Totem.

"More people on the Sunshine Coast Palliative Care Program die at home than in the hospital or hospice rooms," added Petrina Wing, Vancouver Coastal Health's palliative care coordinator. "We have an incredible home health care team that is committed to providing support at end of life but a lot of care still falls on families and friends."

The new tower at St. Mary's has single-patient rooms andcanserve as end-of-life rooms, but acute care rooms have a different focus. Because of the infrastructure involved, they are the most costly type of patient rooms in the medical system.

Hospice rooms are more home-like, quieter and calmer. The per diem cost for hospice rooms is about $32/day, which is set by the Ministry of Health.

"We need more residential beds so we can release some of the acute care beds in the hospital and release hospice beds to those in the very end-of-life care," said Dr. Eddie Berinstein, chief of medical staff and one of two palliative care doctors at the forum.

But the biggest problem is the ongoing operational funding - predominantly of staffing. This cannot be accomplished without provincial funding and support from VCH.

Our Coastal community has been grappling with the need for more residential beds for 15 years, but with the demographic bulge being 55 to 65 years of age, the community is reaching a crucial threshold. According to BC Stats released in 2011, the median age of Sunshine Coast residents is 48.5 compared to 40.8 for the rest of the province.

"This is the first time that all of the stakeholders involved in end-of-life care on the Coast were talking together," said Mary Anne Darney, one of the organizers and vice-president of Coast Hospice.

All of the partners at the table agreed that a committee needs to be formed to address these issues. The first step is a needs assessment of the Sunshine Coast, as well as researching what is working in other communities.

While the Canadian Hospice Palliative Care Association estimates that seniors (65-plus) could account for up to 25 per cent of the total population by 2036, the Sunshine Coast will exceed that much sooner, given that seniors make up 21 per cent of our population already. The Sunshine Coast has more seniors per capita than Victoria, which slides in with just 17 per cent of its population over 65.

On the Sunshine Coast, one in two people are over the age of 50. The geriatric capital of B.C. is Parksville, with 37 per cent of their population over the age of 65.

"There is a need, but we can be a formidable force by working together," said Maureen Clayton, chair of the St. Mary's Hospital Foundation.

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