Conservative MLA Brennan Day has introduced a private member’s bill that aims to shed light on wait times in B.C.’s long-term care system.
Day says that the Long Term Care Access and Transparency Act would require health authorities across the province to release wait-list data every month.
If passed, it would reveal how long patients, mainly seniors, are waiting to be admitted into long-term care.
“You cannot fix what you do not measure,” said Day in a press release.
Additionally, it would track how many hospital beds are tied up by patients waiting for transfer, how many die before receiving care, and how often families are sent to facilities they did not choose.
The party’s critic for seniors and rural health hopes to improve the strained system.
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“Right now, families across British Columbia are navigating long-term care, hospice, and home supports in the dark,” he said. “That has to change.”
Day’s proposal would also require the Ministry of Health to publicly report long-term care capacity relative to population need.
He argues that his action is an answer to the government’s inaction, referring to the NDP’s decision to delay construction on several long-term care facilities in the province.
“The most recent budget cancelled six long-term care projects at a time when our population is aging rapidly,” Day said.
“There is no meaningful, transparent plan to address long-term care capacity in British Columbia. British Columbians deserve to see the numbers, and they deserve to see the plan.”
The NDP has been criticized by several organizations representing the seniors in the province for the budget cuts.
The BC Care Providers Association (BCCPA) and B.C. Seniors Advocate Dan Levitt warns that the cuts to long-term care will have trickle-down effects on the struggling health-care system in the province.
A report from Levitt’s officer, published in January this year, shows that while the number of long-term care beds in the province has grown by about five per cent in recent years, the population of those aged 65 and over has increased by nearly 20 per cent.
Day, the MLA for Courtenay-Comox, hopes his bill will receive bipartisan support in the B.C. Legislature, arguing that it is drafted as nonpartisan legislation.
“There is no reason to oppose publishing accurate data and a clear plan, unless the goal is to obscure the scope of the problem,” he said.
The bill now goes before the legislature.