Provincial legislation good for hospitals but has fallout for long-term-care facilties

New Golden Plough Lodge. Courtesy of Northumberland County Facebook

By Cecilia Nasmith

The waiting list to get into the Golden Plough Lodge is 800, and one factor slowing down admissions off that list is actually due to provincial legislation from 2022.

At Tuesday's meeting of the Northumberland County council Community Health Committee, Director of Care Alison Bushell brought up the issue when reporting on compliance with a more recent provincial-legislation provision for long-term care – avoiding unnecessary hospital visits. At the Plough, however, that number rose almost 65% from last year.

Part of that is due to the 2022 legislation that aimed to free up hospital beds tied up with ALC (alternative level of care) patients.

The term ALC interested Committee Chair Lucas Cleveland - “people who are often sent to long-term care because there's nowhere else to send them?”

Bushell agreed that would sum it up.

The term was once common at Northumberland Hills Hospital board meetings, where directors would hear of certain numbers of beds tied up by ALC patients – those who were no longer in need of acute medical care per se, but did not have a home-care situation into which they could reasonably be released. The result was work by hospital staff to find ways to ensure they would be cared for after discharge, but it was a time-consuming process.

The legislation aimed to free up these hospital beds by diverting these patients into long-term-care homes.

Bushell said the impact on their waitlist of 800 is significant, as a lot of the diverted patients come to the Plough – to the point that “eight in 10 residents came in under crisis, significantly displacing people on the waitlist. Many have complex mental-health challenges and higher-acuity health needs.”

The result is actually a higher likelihood of emergency-department visits. They are initiating new methods they hope might cut this number with such things as enhanced clinical assessments and advanced care planning.