Column: No easy solutions to demographic crunch

Mrs. B is 96. She lives in her own home, but she has been losing strength in the past six months.

She was admitted to Health Science North recently with a bowel obstruction. This was resolved without surgery and, a few days later, the patient was discharged with 10 hours of support a week.

Initially, Mrs. B. couldn’t get out of bed without aid. She could feed herself, but only if the meals were brought right to her. Clearly, 10 hours of support a week was not sufficient for her to manage at home by herself.

Her two daughters provided the missing care — taking turns sleeping over — but this was not a realistic long-term solution. They both have full-time jobs and are looking into hiring a private personal support worker (PSW).

Mrs. B. has money saved up and does not want to be a burden.

The family is also applying for long-term care in case she continues to decline.

This is an increasingly common story. Sudbury’s seniors are aging. There are now 3,200 people over the age of 85 in our community. While some have few disabilities, many suffer from physical and mental decline.

If they are to stay out of institutions, they need help.

What would have been the outcome if Mrs. B. and her family did not have the financial means to engage a private PSW? What if Mrs. B. had no family in Sudbury to help out?

There are many elderly people in the city without the means for private support or the family to help them. Some families dispose of the patient’s home when the patient is admitted to hospital. If the family home is no longer an option, there is an alternative to long-term care: assisted living. Finlandia has these apartment-style accommodations on their campus.

Unfortunately, the Northeast Community Care Access Center can only fund up to two hours of care per person a day.

The fall back option is the hospital. Mrs. B. would have become an alternate level of care (ALC) patient while she waited for a long-term care bed. Wait times vary from a few months to a year, depending on the nursing home selected.

Besides not being an ideal place to live, each ALC patient takes up a bed that is then no longer available for acute care patients. That could mean newly admitted hospital patients would have to lie on a stretcher in the busy Emergency Department while waiting for a bed to become available.

The longest wait was 60 hours in early December. Fifteen patients were housed in lounges that week. Seven surgeries were cancelled. This was a real-life game of dominos: one fell down, then another and another.

Ontario’s government is spending a lot on fixes. It has good intentions, but the population is aging, more is medically possible and there is not an infinite supply of money.

This is not a problem that will go away anytime soon. Nor is it one with easy solutions.

Dr. Peter Zalan is president of the medical staff at Health Sciences North.