Editor:
Like many of my physician colleagues, I was very disappointed that the recently announced decision by Vancouver Coastal Health to replace Totem Lodge and Shorncliffe Care Home with the new Silverstone Care Centre over the next two years fails to come anywhere close to meeting the need for government-subsidized long-term care beds on the Sunshine Coast.
At present we require more than 100 new beds to bring us up to the provincial average of 100 beds per 1,000 population over the age of 75. The Silverstone proposal gives us only 20 new beds. This is totally inadequate and unacceptable!
So our current problems remain and in fact will be worse than ever due to our growing senior population. Long-term care patients will continue to occupy a large percentage of our hospital’s acute care beds. They will receive inappropriate, costly care, in some cases for several months. They will uncaringly be sent to off-Coast long-term care facilities. Sechelt Hospital will remain overcrowded, putting ongoing strain on care providers and compromising the quality and safety of patient care. Bed lock in our Emergency Room will continue as admitted patients have no ward beds to be admitted to, creating a situation in which it is difficult to provide optimum care to new emergency cases presenting to the hospital.
The medical staff at Sechelt Hospital has expressed these concerns repeatedly to Vancouver Coastal Health representatives over the past few years. The Silverstone care facility does nothing to address those concerns. Unless VCH has additional as yet unannounced plans to urgently address our critical shortage of long-term care beds, the prognosis for future care is grim.
The Sunshine Coast deserves better.
Jim Petzold MD, Gibsons
