A community meeting in Port McNeill has raised concerns from residents regarding health care research.
Two consultants, Melanie Mogus and Helena Trudel, gave a presentation at the Community Hall which identified gaps in North Island services.
Some of the areas identified at the meeting on June 7 were transportation issues, lack of home care support, empty hospital beds, and a lack of longterm residential care facilities in the region.
The research was part of a collaborative working group’s effort to collect health data specific to the North Island.
“What we’ve been working on is trying to find the areas that we have gaps in our medical services in the North Island,” said Port McNeill Mayor Shirley Ackland, who is also co-chair of the collaborative working group. “I think we probably have the best medical services anywhere. But we have areas that we might be able to find a fix that works better for us,” added Ackland.
The group is composed of city officials, councillors, and health authorities from across the region.
“The goal of the research is to better understand the communities in the North Island and how to best use the health services in the region,” said Ackland.
The collaborative working group hired Mogus and Trudel from Novatone Consulting, based out of Prince George, B.C., who often do consulting work for Northern Health.
“We know we live here, we can identify the gaps anecdotally and say we need transportation services, we need a wheelchair van so people can get to appointments, or we need to coordinate specialist appointments out of regions,” said Ackland, who added that “without the statistics that Melanie and Helena have put together, we have nothing to go forward with.”
“We are taking this big lump of information and are trying to distill it to the different communities,” Mogus said. “And the point of this is planning for the North Island.”
The information collected was presented from the findings of the first six to eight months of the two-year study.
This was the first opportunity the working group has had to deliver its findings to the public.
Demographic Shift:
One of the first pieces of information presented was the changing demographics of the Mount Waddington Regional District. The 65 plus age demographics have been increasing across the region.
“The population over age 75 on the North Island is expected to triple by 2033, and the population under 20 is expected to decrease by 20 per cent,” said Mogus.
“This change will certainly have a dramatic impact on health services.”
The over age 75 demographic is often associated with the most expensive health care services.
Transportation:
Another significant area identified was transportation difficulties.
“What came through loud and clear is that travel to access care is the biggest burden for people that live in this region,” said Mogus.
“It’s a huge challenge.”
She said she wanted to see see actual numbers for how many kilometres people were traveling based on their diagnosis and the out of pocket expense they would have pay to get care.
“We spoke to an elderly couple who travel out of the region for specialty appointments,” said Mogus. “And they put on about 17 thousand kilometres traveling and the out of pocket expense was around $19,000.”
Mogus added at this point they are simply acknowledging and respecting the fact that people on the North Island “have to endure this”.
Home Care:
There are 60 people who receive home support services in the Mount Waddington Regional District.
Home support services includes community workers who help patients with bathing, dressing, and dispensing medication.
“Just in Port Alice, we asked the physicians there; can you identify people frail at home that would benefit from home support?” said Mogus.
“They were able to pull between 20 and 30 people off the top of their heads just for Port Alice.”
Mogus added home support can often delay patients needing long term care placements.
She also stated the working group is hoping to pull the numbers of people who need home support in the region from the community engagement work they are currently doing.
Acute hospital occupancy rates:
Mogus and Trudel also looked at acute care occupancy rates, which means the number of beds in hospitals that have a patient in them.
They found the occupancy in Port Hardy was only 53 per cent, and the occupancy rate in Port McNeill was only 42 per cent.
Mogus noted the occupancy rate of the two hospitals combined did still not reach 100 per cent occupancy for the year.
“Half of the people that are waiting for residential care are waiting in hospital,” Mogus said. “We know that there are 12 people in the Mount Waddington Region that are waiting for care.”
Mogus continued, saying the average cost of a hospital room per day is $1,100.
For a patient designated as someone who needs less care, the cost of the hospital room is still $600 to $700 a day.
“That’s incredibly expensive and it’s not a good place to wait. You are being compromised by being in that environment,” said Mogus.
This statistic was echoed by concerned Port McNeill citizen Mo Anderson, who attended the meeting. Anderson read from a letter she had prepared for the meeting, saying “Where do you go when you can’t stay in your home anymore and it’s not because you want to, but because you can’t?”
Anderson noted she has known some people who have been here for around 40 years, but had to leave for residential care placements.
“What I am saying is an extended care facility is needed to be added to the Port McNeill hospital,” she concluded.
Mogus noted the research will be used by the collaborative group to plan for services in the future.
“A lot of this information is anecdotal, they get a sense that there is a gap and that something is missing, but they don’t have the numbers, and that is all we are trying to do,” said Mogus.
“This information will take us a long way for lobbying for more dollars and to better use what they give us right now,” added Ackland.
The funding for the collaborative working group comes from Doctors of BC.
Doctors of BC was founded in 1900 as the British Columbia Medical Association.
Doctors of BC has a long history of working for members, improving patient care, and influencing health care policy.
- Hanna Petersen article
