I noted that the plans for the expansion of St. Mary's Hospital includes single rooms for patients (Coast Reporter, June 12).
This plan has merit from not only an infection control standpoint but will maintain the privacy, dignity and confidentiality of patients.
However, right next door to the hospital is a long term care residence, Totem Lodge, which is home to approximately 45 of the most vulnerable members of our society who live there, not only for a week or two, but 365 days a year. They do not have the "luxury" of private rooms but instead share their room with three other people and whose personal space is defined by curtains pulled around their beds.
Do they not deserve protection from communicable disease as well? Do they not need privacy in order to preserve their dignity?
While I do not disclaim the need for better acute care services on the Sunshine Coast, I think it is long past time that we look at the long term care services and particularly the facilities that provide those services and begin to get our priorities straight. It is time to demand new facilities to replace Totem Lodge and Shorncliffe residence so that our elderly who require residential care can have at least the same type of single occupancy rooms as the transient acute care patients?
We don't have to settle for one over the other - both needs are legitimate and necessary.
Judith M. Georgetti, RN
Pender Harbour
