A wise journalist once said the stories that really matter to society play out in the background, over time, as the more exciting narratives of each particular day hog the limelight.
There is something to that. For all of the attention Flin Flon pays to potholes, vandalism and how much cheaper gas is in The Pas, a tragic quandary is being largely overlooked.
“Hundreds of Manitoba seniors wait in hospital for care home beds,” blared a March 2016 headline on CBC.ca.
At the time, about 1,250 Manitoba seniors were on a waiting list for personal care home beds. Several hundred of them were in such dire condition that they had been placed in hospital beds as a crude alternative.
In the Northern Health Region, which encompasses all of northern Manitoba except for Churchill, 67 seniors were on the waiting list, 14 of whom were living in a hospital.
The average wait time for a northern senior to access a care home bed was 10.7 weeks – more than double the wait in Winnipeg, yet still much shorter than in two other Manitoba health regions.
The shortage of care home beds represents an intense struggle for Flin Flon families. It is also no doubt emotionally draining for health care professionals who must decide who gets a care home bed, who gets a hospital bed and who gets no bed at all.
Yet this issue receives relatively scant attention. Politicians may pay lip service, but they fail to grasp the significance of the care home shortage.
During the 2016 provincial election campaign, the NDP pledged 1,000 new care home beds across the province. This promise would have fallen 20 per cent short of meeting the need that existed at that time – a need that will only grow in the future.
The PCs promised 1,200 new beds, enough to eliminate all waiting lists at the time, but again this ignored the realities of Manitoba’s aging population. According to the Manitoba Centre for Health Policy, the province will need 5,100 new care home beds by 2036.
Now that the PCs are in power, their pledge is in doubt. As the Winnipeg Sun’s Tom Brodbeck notes, the province’s decision earlier this year to “pause” about $1 billion worth of health care capital projects means no new care homes for Manitoba in the near future.
Eventually the provincial government, be it PC, NDP or Liberal, will have to treat this matter seriously, especially since the eldest of the baby boomers are now 71 years old.
Without concrete action, hospitals will progressively fill up with seniors. Seniors left at home will increasingly struggle to carry on. It will be Manitoba’s own version of a humanitarian crisis.
Manitoba urgently needs an ambitious, fast-moving plan to open more care home beds. Not every community can have a large-scale personal care home, of course, so regionalization will come into play.
And that represents an economic and social opportunity for Flin Flon.
Our community is an ideal location for northern regional care homes given our abundance of services, established medical workforce and facilities, and proximity and communal ties to burgeoning First Nations that are also challenged by the care home shortage.
Just as importantly, Flin Flon itself has an established and growing need for more care home beds.
City council and MLA Tom Lindsey should actively work with the provincial government on the concept of new, large-scale regional care homes, selling Flin Flon as the perfect site for these inevitable facilities.
