Montreal to lose 500 beds from public nursing homes
Even as Montreal seniors are waiting two to three years to be placed in a public-sector nursing home, Quebec plans to close 500 “extra” nursing home beds in the city. Montreal and Quebec City have too many long-term beds compared with the rest of the province, Quebec Health Minister Réjean Hébert told The Gazette, and the plan is to trim the excess while sending hospitalized patients home to await a long-term-care spot. But the cuts — which do not have a fixed time frame and are to come into effect gradually — have outraged critics who say it’s “a crazy plan” to take away beds before the province has improved home care services for the growing elderly population.This year, the Montreal Health and Social Services Agency had 5,000 requests for placement in long-term facilities, and managed to place 3,000. Hébert, a medical doctor with a specialty in geriatrics, said that the ratio in Montreal is 4.2 long-term beds per 100 elderly people, compared with an average of two beds per 100 seniors elsewhere in Quebec. He said the impending bed closings will narrow that gap. “There are extra beds in Montreal,” Hébert said, and the cost for those extra beds means there is less funding devoted to home care and intermediate facilities. Most of Montreal’s cuts will be in nursing homes that have four or more people in a room, Hébert explained. These will be converted to single and double occupancy rooms, which is considered appropriate care standards for 2013. Hébert also pointed out that the latest report by Quebec’s auditor general showed that 35 per cent of people who are admitted to nursing homes could have been put in assisted-living facilities, where people get as much as three hours of care per day. “So we are using long-term-care facilities to provide services to people who could be much better served by intermediate facilities,” he said.
But acting auditor general Michel Samson was also sharply critical of Quebec’s home care, calling it inconsistent and sub-standard.
Quebec has invested $110 million — $17 million for Montreal — this fiscal year to improve home care, Hébert said, noting that many seniors have said they would prefer to live in their own homes as long as possible, rather than stay in hospitals or nursing homes.