Seniors in BC remain in long-term care for an average of two and a half years, up seven percent from 2020, and their isolation in the COVID-19 pandemic is taking its toll on physical and social activity.
BC Senior Attorney Isobel Mackenzie released her annual long-term care bill this week, showing that Health Secretary Adrian Dix’s goal of bringing publicly funded nursing homes up to provincial standards for daily personal care is getting closer.
“If we compare performance from year to year, we see a continuous improvement in direct mentoring times,” said Mackenzie when the directory was published on December 15th. “However, we are also seeing a worrying trend in the use of antipsychotics. The proportion of residents who take antipsychotics without a psychosis diagnosis has increased by eight percent compared to the previous year. ”
A decline in physical, occupational and recreational therapies did not begin with the pandemic and its access restrictions, but has continued for five years, the report says. Waiting times to enter a facility vary widely across the province, from no waiting to five years or more.
The Ministry of Health’s target of 3.37 hours of direct care per resident per day will be promoted for health departments and nursing homes and the number of facilities that meet the target will be increased from 50 to 83 percent.
The complete directory comparing statistics from 297 care facilities to 27,931 publicly funded beds, most of them operated by contractors funded by a regional health authority.
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