Editor:
Re: “Silverstone – let’s do it” by Dr. Jim Petzold, Letters, Dec. 13.
It’s disappointing that a physician who has experienced first-hand the Coast’s acute care crisis imagines it will be reduced if Vancouver Coastal Health turns long-term care into a money-making enterprise. There is ample evidence that privatization not only jeopardizes the quality of senior care, but damages the public health system in the process.
According to a 2018 report by B.C. Seniors Care Advocate Isobel Mackenzie, compared to residents of public care centres, those in private facilities are 32 per cent more likely to end up in emergency and 34 per cent more likely to be hospitalized. They remain in hospital 32 per cent longer and are 47 per cent more likely never to return to the facilities from which they came. Worse, they are 54 per cent more likely to die in hospital.
The report spells out other consequences of for-profit care providers offloading ill patients to the public system. According to Mackenzie, if contracted care facilities performed as well as publicly owned and operated ones, the health care system would save $16 million and increase capacity by 15,481 beds annually.
Petzold accepts VCH’s pledge to hold Trellis accountable for any deviations from the expected standard of care. Setting aside the many promises that VCH has already broken, the notion that private operators are accountable doesn’t bear scrutiny. As Mackenzie recently told CBC, “… right now, there’s no incentive for a care home provider to be better than the next care home or to be excellent from a financial perspective. They get paid the same.”
In the past month, three facilities on Vancouver Island have been put under direct administration following multiple ongoing care violations. The only other available remedy is to revoke a facility’s operating licence, in which case residents would be left homeless.
Dr. Petzold also speaks hopefully of the “accommodation” of volunteer services within a private facility. Just because the Healthcare Auxiliary is legally entitled to contribute volunteer services, why should we assume that Trellis would forego the profits of hairdressing and other services that Auxiliary volunteers currently provide in Totem Lodge and Shorncliffe?
More to the point, if care were privatized, the Auxiliary’s contribution of medical equipment would come to an end, leaving many families on the hook for thousands of dollars. Unfortunately, that’s a reality that Petzold ignores.
Yes, Dr. Petzold, constant overcrowding has created an unhealthy and unsafe environment for patients and staff at Sechelt Hospital, but to suggest the situation can be improved by privatizing long-term care is shortsighted and frankly harmful.
Wendy Hunt, Chair, Protect Public Health Care – Sunshine Coast (PPHC)
