B.C. family’s subsidized long-term care search highlights challenges
Posted January 24, 2023 2:51 pm.
Last Updated January 24, 2023 7:28 pm.
A Metro Vancouver woman who had been struggling to find subsidized long-term care for her aging mother-in-law says something needs to change, after having to jump through various hoops to find her an affordable place to live.
Shelley Hamilton says her mother-in-law, Donella Krebs, has been paying for private care at Lakeshore Care Centre in Coquitlam for four years, the price tag totalling close to $6,000 a month. Initially, she tells CityNews they thought the placement would only be for a year due to her mother-in-law’s health.
“It’s four years later now and we didn’t expect to have to pay all of this money out. And there’s no more money,” Hamilton told CityNews Monday.
“I keep hearing the words ‘imminent danger of being homeless,’ is what I’m hearing from caseworkers, and that’s why I’m supposed to really accept anything, no matter what, that’s offered to me, because I’m saying that she’s going to be homeless so how can I possibly refuse?”
Donella Krebs is pictured with her daughter Shayne McCallion at the Lakeshore Care Centre. Krebs’ daughter-in-law, Shelley Hamilton, says she’d like the process to be easier after the family was forced to wait a year for an update on subsidized housing for the 91-year-old. (Submitted)
No longer able to afford the cost, Krebs was set to vacate her private-pay room by the end of February. The best case scenario was for her to remain where she is, as the facility has a mix of private-pay and public rooms.
In 2022, the family applied for subsidized housing for the 91-year-old. She had been on the waitlist ever since.
The main source of frustration for the family was the challenges they faced in trying to get an update on where the elderly woman was on the list — something that didn’t come until Hamilton brought her story to CityNews.
Everything changed on Tuesday. Hamilton says she received notice that there was going to be an opening at Lakeshore in the coming week, meaning Krebs can stay where she is.
“I said, ‘What? Is this for sure? She can stay there?'” Hamilton recalled from her conversation with one of her case worker’s managers. “I said, ‘How can this happen after all this time?’ and she goes, ‘Well, that’s my job.’ So if I would have had access to Anna, which I had been asking for since September, this all could have been sorted out.”
‘The list is the list’
In the year the family had been in this back and forth, Hamilton says she had three caseworkers, noting she was forced to re-explain her mother-in-law’s situation to each one.
“It’s not her fault, really. The case workers are great, but I’ve had three within a year,” Hamilton previously told CityNews, prior to the latest development. “In September I had a long conversation with my second case worker going, ‘Ok, I need to start wrapping things up here. I’ve got five months left of payment.’ And I understand … it’s not easy.”
Having been through a similar process with her father-in-law years prior, Hamilton says things were not quite as challenging.
“All I’ve been told for one year is the list is the list, and until she is next up on the list and until she is next up for a room at Lakeshore or the Madison,” Hamilton said, noting those two facilities are listed as the family’s top choices since they share the same doctor her mother in law has been seeing for the past four years.
Confirmation that Krebs will have a subsidized room in the facility she currently lives in has brought a lot of relief to Hamilton. But she admits it shouldn’t have been this hard or required “rattling the cages” to get here.
“Like I said in all of my correspondence and all of my conversations with anybody who would listen was I just wanted someone to actually look at the case and not just go, ‘the list is the list and there’s nothing we could do.”
Donella Krebs has been living at Lakeshore Care Centre for four years. Her daughter in law, Shelley Hamilton, says after applying for subsidized care and waiting a year for an update, the family has finally been told Krebs can stay in the facility. (Submitted)
Seniors advocate Isobel Mackenzie says while she believes those who put provincial policies together had the best of intentions, it ultimately comes down to the people who actually place seniors to interpret the rules.
As such, she notes policies and interpretations can vary — something that was evident throughout the pandemic.
“Your experience in the health care system, whether it’s in long-term care, whether it’s your mom in hospice, whatever, is determined to the largest extent not by all our policies and everything else but by the response of the interaction with the person you are dealing with,” Mackenzie told CityNews.
She points out that wait times for long-term care spots in Fraser Health aren’t the longest in the province. However, she says they have increased the most in the past couple of years, likely due to population increase.
Mackenzie also explains the province brought in changes in 2019 to address wait times and lists. Those changes also meant people could decline offers that didn’t suit their or their loved one’s needs, without being taken off the list.
“Without a doubt, COVID just disrupted everything, you couldn’t reasonably measure anything as the norm,” Mackenzie said, adding we should be at a place now where people have a better idea of where they stand on the list.
“With the policy change that was put in place in 2019, the stage was set to be able to do that.”
Hamilton worries that had it not been for “Anna” and the calls from CityNews to get them connected, her family would likely still be waiting for answers.
Family calls for change, says ‘system needs to be easier’
Health Minister Adrian Dix acknowledges the challenges many families and workers are facing, as it relates to demand for care spaces and wait lists.
He tells CityNews that while there are rules, there are also flexibilities. However, he notes everyone’s situation needs to be considered.
“What we’ve tried to do is exactly that compassion — I’ve made a lot of decisions as minister of health over five years and worked on a lot of issues. The one I get people coming up to me with the most emotion and the most positive emotion … is the decision to allow people some measure of choice in long-term care,” he explained.
“There are always circumstances that can intervene,” Dix said.
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With Hamilton’s mother-in-law’s situation now more clear, the Metro Vancouver woman says she’s relieved.
“I’m finally going to be able to have a sleep and stop bothering everybody,” Hamilton said.
However, she worries about others who may find themselves in a similar situation, being stuck looking for answers.
“The system needs to be easier somehow,” she said. “I just wish the system would work more per-case.”
