An Athabasca doctor is alarmed to find empty beds at the Extendicare Athabasca long-term care, despite a long waiting list for patients, including his own.
Earlier this month, Dr. Michael Smith was touring the Extendicare facility with a nurse and was astonished to see several empty beds.
“I said, ‘Well, don’t you guys want patients,’ and (the nurse) said, ‘Sure we do. We’re dependent on them,’” Smith recalled.
“So I said, ‘Well why have you got these empty beds?’ She said, ‘Oh, it’s the approval.’”
Then on Sept. 10, he called the front desk and spoke with another staff member who told him them there were eight beds now, but the number changes week to week.
“It’s become totally unwieldy and unnecessarily expensive, time-consuming and delayed,” he described of the process to admit a senior into long-term care.
He recalled back in 1979, he would fill out a form about the patient’s age, demographics and medication. Within 15 minutes the application was approved.
“Over the years, a small army of desk jockeys have accumulated,” he said.
“It’s these bunch of bureaucrats who all have all these positions and it slowly filters up and filters down, and probably goes further up.
“It takes an awful long time to get approval and then an awful long time waiting for them to get a bed.”
Alberta Health Services (AHS) contracts out its care services to Extendicare, but AHS Placement Services manages Extendicare’s vacancies, waitlists and transfers from other seniors’ facilities, explained Joan Cody, RN administrator and Ethics Practice leader at Extendicare Athabasca.
Although Athabasca Extendicare can house up to 50 residents, Cody wouldn’t say how many seniors are currently living in the facility.
But Cindy Harmata, the Seniors Operating Director at AHS Lakeland Centre in Slave Lake defended the standardized approval process.
“I can say with absolute confidence that our assessment process now is more standard; it’s not based on objectives opinions,” she stated.
“It’s based on well-researched evidence around, ‘if you’re displaying this type of care need or this type of behaviour, here’s what we can expect we need to provide.
“We have evolved a long ways from those days when we really didn’t look at factors like individual choice, individual’s rights to live in risk if that’s what they choose to do and whether or not we can manage their care needs in a different way that is less intrusive than a full institutionalization of a senior.”
She explained that approval requires a conversation with the senior, their family members, their physician and healthcare aides about what that senior needs and whether those can be met safely in their current location.
“We like to start with the aging-in-place as much as possible,” she said. “If you’re safe to wait in your own home and it looks as though your care needs are escalating, we can put in a plan to support you with family members and/or AHS homecare teams.”
Then a discussion takes places about where a senior would like to live as their first choice.
In Athabasca, seniors have the option of long-term care at the Athabasca Healthcare Centre Auxiliary or Extendicare Athabasca.
However, both the Auxiliary and Extendicare Athabasca’s secure ward — for seniors with memory impairments and require safe accommodations — have waitlists.
“I’m not trying to dance around the number of how long you might wait,” Harmata said, “but it is difficult to say with absolute black-and-white numbers because it depends on availability of space and willingness to look outside the community, if there’s no space available.”
Although Harmata did admit there are eight vacancies at Extendicare Athabasca in the general section, she assumed Dr. Smith’s patient was stuck on the waiting list because their needs exceeded the capacities of the general facility.
But that might not be the only reason. Other factors do come into play like arranging finances and furnishings and applying for pensions or assured income for the disabled.
AHS does cover the healthcare costs at Extendicare, while it’s up to the individual to pay for accommodations and hospitality services.
However, AHS retains oversight over the facility with annual or biannual audits of Extendicare’s continuing care, health-service standards, accommodation, infection protection and nutritional guidelines.
Smith said he hasn’t contacted AHS or higher authorities to express his complaint.
“I’m not going to the government; they should know what the problem is and be doing something about it already,” he said. “I mean you do that and you get no where. All you get is a bunch of codswallops.”
