Nearly 600 Horizon Health Network hospital beds continue to be occupied by alternate level of care (ALC) patients.
And new numbers released by the regional health authority show those patients are costing taxpayers $479,000 per day.
Margaret Melanson, president and CEO of Horizon Health, said 80 per cent of ALC patients are waiting for long-term care beds.
“There is certainly just not enough nursing home beds available within New Brunswick to accommodate them,” Melanson said following Thursday’s quarterly board meeting.
Horizon Health has been trying to move ALC patients out of hospital beds more quickly to help reduce the significant strain on inpatient capacity
But despite the health authority’s efforts, the number of patients has grown to 599 from 570 in December, accounting for more than one-third of all hospital beds.
Social Development has ‘failed miserably’: board member
“Do I think that Social Development has kept up their end of their bargain and their mandate to provide timely access to long-term care beds? No, I don’t. In fact, I think they’ve failed miserably,” said board member Dr. Stephen Bolton.
“Just take a look at our ERs. The beds are full. They’re full of patients who are admitted and waiting to go upstairs, and there’s no beds upstairs because they’re full of alternate level of care patients.
“So that emergency room, which has perhaps sufficient beds to deal with the population they serve, are actually trying to funnel all the people that walk through the door through two or three beds they’ve managed to keep free.”
In addition to the impacts on the health-care system, Bolton said ALC patients may not be receiving the appropriate level of care they require while waiting for a long-term care placement.
Fredericton pilot project saw success
Melanson said they saw great success with a pilot project at Fredericton’s Chalmers hospital, where Horizon staff, social workers and discharge planners took over long-term care assessments from the Department of Social Development.
Waitlist times for long-term care were reduced and staff eliminated the waitlist the waitlist for assessments a
Melanson said they saw great success with a pilot project at the Fredericton hospital which saw Horizon staff, social workers and discharge planners look after long-term care assessments for patients rather than the Department of Social Development.
But while the patients are being assessed for long-term care more quickly, the issue remains that there are no nursing home beds available for them to go to, she said.
“Further to that, we have not yet had a green light to be able to fund this to either continue at the Chalmers or to be spread to other regional sites across our health authority,” added Melanson.
The health authority had requested about $1 million from the provincial government to expand the pilot project to other regional centres over the coming months.
As Horizon aims to reduce the number of ALC patients in hospitals to 20 per cent by 2026, Melanson said they want to work with Social Development on a “very comprehensive strategy” to address the issue.
