I sincerely thank you for the opportunity to present here this evening about what CALTC is, the work that the long-term care sector is doing and how we're responding to the COVID-19 situation in Canada.
My name is Jodi Hall, and I'm here today as the chair of the Canadian Association for Long Term Care.
CALTC is committed to ensuring long-term care for all, and we advocate on behalf of seniors to share knowledge, insight and best practices to ensure that seniors can live and age with dignity. As the leading voice for quality long-term care in Canada, our members deliver publicly funded health care services for seniors across Canada.
To begin, I'll provide an overview of the long-term care sector and the changing demographics in Canada, with current trends.
The most current data indicates that there are over 150,000 long-term care beds across the country and over 1,300 long-term care homes in Canada. The 2016 census data indicated that for the first time in Canadian history, the number of persons over the age of 65 outnumbered those under the age of 14. Population projections show that the gap between the two age groups will continue to widen, with data suggesting that the portion of the Canadian population that is 65 and older will rise by approximately 25% by 2036. The number of seniors 80 years and older is predicted to double between 2011 and 2036.
Our seniors are living longer and are entering long-term care more fragile than ever before, and residents who move into long-term care do so with complex health issues. For example, over 60% of people in long-term care experience advanced forms of dementia, including Alzheimer's; 70% have advanced heart and circulatory diseases; and 58% have advanced hypertension-related conditions.
I want to acknowledge, as I address the issue of COVID-19, the seniors and residents who have passed away as a result of COVID-19. Our hearts are absolutely with the families. I'm sure that you can join me in extending deepest condolences to all of them.
I also want to thank all of the front-line workers who continue to provide compassionate care to Canada's seniors.
We will have a lot of time to review what has been done differently, but I think we will find that the impact of COVID-19 in long-term care homes could have been mitigated if governments had been more proactive in supporting the care sector prior to these outbreaks. Some of the challenges I will be discussing today have been exacerbated by COVID-19, but really they represent systemic issues. In many respects, these systemic issues require support from the federal government, and our members have been raising these issues for many years.
In regard to human resources for health care, we are at a crisis point in Canada with respect to our supply of health workers in the senior care sector. Attracting and retaining individuals in careers of care for Canada's seniors has become increasingly challenging, especially when preparing for a further influx of seniors who will require care for multiple and complex conditions. In my home province of New Brunswick, because of the age of our workforce and the anticipated number of retirements, we're expecting to have a need for over 3,000 care employees, who will need to be hired over the next eight years. For a small province like New Brunswick, that's a very significant number.
Supporting health care aides, continuing care assistants and personal support workers involves structured education and continued training to support these individuals in providing the highest quality of care. It also requires structured governance models to affirm health care aide credentials, conduct and competency.
We understand that the current health care assistant labour force shortage cannot be solved through the recruitment of international students and nurses alone. However, CALTC believes that recruiting international students and nurses does offer an opportunity in part to address the current supply crisis of trained staff in Canada.
To harness this opportunity, the long-term care sector requires the federal government to support policy changes that are aimed at solving the chronic labour shortage. A health human resource strategy for the long-term care sector must focus on the right number, mix, and geographic distribution of providers as well as the appropriate setting for providers to deliver the services.
CALTC is calling on health ministers across the country to pick up where they left off over 20 years ago when the original health accord was negotiated and work was done on a health human resource strategy. Through the leadership of the federal minister of health, health ministers must recognize that the significant challenges that the long-term care sector faces in supporting our aging population are still present 20 years later. Through the leadership of the federal government, there must be collaboration among the provinces, the territories and the long-term care sector to develop and implement a pan-Canadian health human resources strategy.
With regard to infrastructure, the severity of the COVID-19 outbreak has presented unique challenges for staff in the homes. Containing the spread of infection appears to have been more challenging in older homes. Many older homes still have three- and four-bed wards. They do not have private rooms, which makes it very challenging to implement cohorting plans and isolation measures. Older homes generally have narrow hallways, and often there is only one dining room on a main floor. Both of these configurations make it very hard to keep residents apart.
On April 11, the Public Health Agency of Canada released an interim guidance document on infection prevention and control in long-term care homes. Some of the guidelines, such as restrictions to certain work zones and the use of single rooms for certain types of care, are almost impossible for the majority of homes to follow, given that they were not always built to accommodate single rooms for each resident.
Older long-term care homes—