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Opinion: The possible, the good and the timely

Paper files aren’t as common as they once were in the nation’s newsrooms, but I still keep them, and two of the thickest files in my cabinet are for the hospital expansion project and the proposed new long-term care facility on the Coast.

Paper files aren’t as common as they once were in the nation’s newsrooms, but I still keep them, and two of the thickest files in my cabinet are for the hospital expansion project and the proposed new long-term care facility on the Coast.

And I think it’s well past time I merged the two files because it’s really one story.

In February of 2018, Health Minister Adrian Dix told me in an interview that a deal that would see the start of construction of the new long-term care facility was “close” – more than a year after it was first announced. 

Last week, just after Coast Reporter’s deadline, “close” got significantly closer with the announcement of an agreement that would see workers who transfer from the public to the privately-run facility retain their seniority, pay and benefits (see story page 5).

In our interview last year, Dix acknowledged the strong opposition to the involvement of a private company in the project, but said, “I don’t want to abandon the possible and the good in pursuit of the perfect.”

My personal feelings on the public vs. private debate aside, it’s hard not to argue that when it comes to long-term care on the Sunshine Coast, we’re well past the point where the possible and the good also need to be timely because the cascading effect on the rest of the health care system is getting too serious to ignore.

The files are merging.

From the moment it looked like the long-term proposal was facing a delay, local doctors started talking more often, and more publicly, about the impact the shortage of long-term care beds was having on the hospital.

Local physicians have estimated that as many as 40 per cent of the beds at the now overcrowded hospital are being used by patients waiting for long-term care spaces. 

The claim that our practically new hospital is overcrowded, and that a big reason is patients who should be somewhere else have nowhere else, might prompt you to cock an eyebrow.

I recently had a chance to be up at Sechelt Hospital and I saw firsthand some of the signs of overcrowding.

Rooms that were designed as single-occupancy, a much talked about infection control measure when the expansion was designed, are housing two patients. Some patients have been on the acute care ward far longer than normal for a hospital stay because there aren’t any long-term care spaces. Patients waiting for admission are taking up ER beds.

The rooms that are slated to hold 12 new transition beds to ease the problem are empty for lack of available staff. It was frustrating to glance inside and see the potential and know that for now the good isn’t yet possible.

It’s also increasingly frustrating to know the good and the possible are not happening anywhere near fast enough for the people lying in hospital beds who deserve to be somewhere more perfectly suited to their needs.