Human Resources Committee on Nov. 7th, 2017

[Leighton McDonald]

It should have happened a long time ago. We should have done some demographic planning. We should have had a look and had a long-term strategy in place. There is one thing I was going to mention when the previous question was being answered. What we need is a long-term strategy to turn the ship around. It can't be reliant on election cycles. We need a long-term strategy that all political parties agree with. It should say what we need to do over the next 20 years in order to sort this out. We need principles that will be adhered to.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Where would you say the discussion is today versus the past number of years?

[Leighton McDonald]

We're still seeing a number of small initiatives taking place that are not entirely aligned with a long-term strategy. I have seen new initiatives, but unfortunately not all of them point in the right direction.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you.

Now, we'll go to Mark Warawa.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Thank you, Chair, and my thanks to the witnesses.

Mr. Pike, you mentioned that one of the challenges is that you have to do more with less. You said that there are more seniors but less care providers. Did I get that right?

[Ron Pike]

I think it's the resources that are being brought into the equation. We're finding the acuity levels of people coming toward long-term care increasing and this means more care. There are more transitions. All of those require staffing time. That accounts for some of the pressure on us, particularly in staffing and the number of hours we have to dedicate to it.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Do we need more people trained as nurse practitioners or care aides?

[Ron Pike]

I would probably argue that this is one of the fundamental things that will be huge on the agenda over the next little while. Health human resources is significant.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

To change the way we provide health care.... I believe the average right now, as reported, is that 13% of people who could be in an alternate level of care find themselves in acute care. My understanding is that the target should be around 5% in acute care, so that means a lot of people coming out of acute care and going into residential care or assisted living. Am I correct in those?

[Ron Pike]

I'm not sure of the exact numbers. I'm not an expert in that area, but I would echo Mr. McDonald's comments that we are very acute care centric. Within British Columbia, there are constant stories in the news with respect to the number of older adults who are in hospitals and could be somewhere else.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

I'm sorry to interrupt.

Fraser Health is where you get some of your funding from. Fraser Health is $1,800 a day for acute care, as opposed to around $200 a day for residential care. If we were to close some acute care beds and get them into more beds in residential care, that would be heading in the right direction. I think Fraser Health is headed in that direction. Is that correct?

[Ron Pike]

Yes, Fraser Health had some initiatives over the past year that leaned in that direction.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Thank you.

I have a quick question for Ms. Osborne.

My understanding is that you do not have palliative care at your facility. Is that correct?

[Michèle Osborne]

Yes, that is correct.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Do you provide medically hastened death, assisted dying, at your facility? If somebody wants to end their life, can they have that at your facility?

[Michèle Osborne]

You are referring to a senior who wants to commit suicide?

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Yes.

[Michèle Osborne]

We certainly hear a lot about that. Loneliness is the main cause. I think seniors need to be heard. They have to be able to verbalize what they want at the end of life. They are not used to talking. If we could teach them to express...

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

I'm sorry, excuse me. I have to go to the next question.

You have at your facility no palliative care, but they can receive medical assistance in dying. That's what I think you said.

[A voice]

It's an organization....

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Okay. Excusez-moi.

Trinity Western, how do we encourage more people to get into the field of geriatric nursing and care aides?

[Andrea Dresselhuis]

Gerontology desperately needs highly skilled professionals. When you compare it to other health professions, it's not an attractive option that people run to. I think nursing schools that are offering really great gerontology programs are a huge piece of this. Let's say somebody's gone into gerontology training, and they have a loan. Maybe the feds could forgive that. I would say that could be.... I welcome something—

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Again, I have to apologize. I'm almost out of time.

Mr. Chair, in the interests of what we're hearing and what we're hearing from CARP, I think it's time that we move on to the next stage of actually doing something, what it is that we need to do, because this study is ending now.

My motion is that after we're done with this, we begin a study on what federal initiatives are needed to assist caregivers, to get more people in that, and accessibility requirements. We need to make it possible for people to age in place, so we need to look at what those accessibility requirements are and what federal incentives are needed to actually do this.

I introduced a motion last week, and I would like to move that motion now.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

That's fair enough.

I just want to remind Mr. Warawa that we do have time in committee business to do this. We're going to have to interrupt the session in order to discuss this—

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

I think I'm the last one.