BC Health Minister Adrian Dix says his government is aware of the need for more long term care beds in the Cariboo in the wake of this week’s announcement of 200 new beds in Prince George.
Dix says his government has a budget of more than 2 billion dollars for long term care capital projects which would be for about 3,000 more beds in B.C.
“So we’re looking obviously at other communities that need long term care and that includes communities such as Quesnel, which on the list of communities that you described Quesnel, Williams Lake, 100 Mile, the greatest need for long term care at present is in Quesnel.”
Dix says that’s not to say there isn’t a need in both Williams Lake and 100 Mile House.
He says the most likely scenario in Quesnel would be the redevelopment of Dunrovin Park Lodge.
“They have a health authority owned and operated facility that is aging, so there is a need to address both existing beds and to have more beds to ensure that people in Quesnel have the access to the seniors care that they need.”
Dix says that redevelopment is at the planning stage right now, although he says a project and a budget would still have to work and be approved before anything can go forward.
He says the needs in the province far outweigh the more than two billion dollars in their budget.
“There are 30,000 long term care beds in BC roughly. About a third of those, just under a third of those are public beds. And those public beds saw almost no investment before I became Minister of Health in those 10 years. To put it into context, we’re spending right now 2 billion 39 million dollars on long term care capital. That’s our fund, The previous government in the previous 10 years spent 17.6 million in all of BC, which is basically 3 beds a year.”
Dix says they are making up for 10 years of negligence by the previous government.
“We have 17 care homes that were built before 1970, we have 41 care homes that were built before 1980, most of those care homes are not built to current standards, they often have multi bed rooms which is not the current standard, and then we need more beds as well.”
Dix says not having enough long term care beds also presents other challenges in the health care system.
He says they end up with people in hospital beds who are effectively long term care people who don’t need to be in a hospital, effectively making your hospitals very expensive long term care homes.
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