Waitlist for N.B. nursing homes tops 1,000 — and more than 500 wait in hospital
CBC
An advocate for seniors is sounding the alarm after the latest numbers show the waitlist for a nursing home in New Brunswick has surpassed 1,000.
Cecile Cassista, executive director of the Coalition for Seniors New Brunswick, has been tracking the numbers since 2017.
She said the latest numbers are a clear indication of a broken long-term-care system.
"This is the highest we've been, so it is shocking."
The document shared by Cassista shows the number of people "awaiting placement" by the Department of Social Development as of June 30 was 1,044, including 513 who are waiting in hospital.
As a longtime advocate for seniors and nursing home residents, Cassista said she knows seniors and their families are "very frustrated" to be waiting in hospital environments until nursing homes have room for them.
"The longer people languish in a hospital, their health condition changes," she said. "It is upsetting."
"I know that people don't want to be in the hospital, they don't want to make that their home, but that's the case because we have a broken system."
Compared to waitlist numbers at the end of May, the number of people in hospital waiting for a nursing home placement has increased by 71.
The Moncton region has the highest number of people waiting, at 285, including 133 in hospital.
CBC News contacted the Department of Social Development, but no one was made available for an interview.
According to a news release from Social Development on June 10, celebrating nursing home week, there are 76 nursing homes in New Brunswick, providing 5,223 beds.
The growing waitlist comes as no surprise to Suzanne Dupuis-Blanchard, a professor at the University of Moncton nursing school who researches healthy aging.
"We have to remember that these are our people," she said. "It just breaks my heart to think that someone who [has been] medically discharged is still in a hospital environment."
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