Amidst the debacle over the botched Burnaby Hospital consultations, local Green party activist Bruce Friesen is calling for a new hospital and a seniors' care facility for Burnaby.
"I would like to see Burnaby city hall and MLAs unite to press the Ministry of Health to site a (seniors') building for Burnaby Hospital on the Willingdon lands," he wrote in an email to the NOW.
Friesen, a retired management consultant, wants a seniors' complex that includes housing and care facilities, along with a geriatric research centre. The Willingdon Lands are a 16-hectare site at 3405 to 3705 Willingdon Avenue, where the provincial government was considering building a remand centre in 2008.
"I also believe that as the value of the seniors' care village is realized that a new Burnaby Hospital complex can be built alongside as the Kincaid buildings (at the current Burnaby Hospital site) finally finish their life cycle," he added.
Friesen traces some of Burnaby Hospital's woes back to a 2000 decision by the NDP to close Cascade Residence, a 205-bed extended care complex at the hospital. One-hundred-and-fifty of those beds were replaced through private-public partnerships.
Seniors end up stuck in acute care beds at Burnaby Hospital because there are fewer long-term, less expensive beds elsewhere to transfer them to, Friesen explained.
"Burnaby Hospital could serve seniors coming through its doors in need of residential care at $150 per day, given suitably equipped and staffed beds. Burnaby Hospital must instead spend $475 per day serving seniors trapped in its acute care beds for lack of institutional access to residential care," he said. "This cost difference
of $325 per day represents money wasted on providing medically unneeded services."
Many of Burnaby Hospital's current problems, including the C. dif-ficile, patient crowding and long wait-times, can be traced back to this root cause and to the aging physical plant, Friesen said.
According to Friesen, both mainstream parties, the Liberals and the NDP, have ignored the real problems at Burnaby Hospital, instead favouring "noisy posturing" around the recent public consultation.
"My point is that neither side can claim high ground here because there isn't much to stand on," Friesen said.
Margi Blamey, spokesperson for the Hospital Employees' Union, said Friesen's estimate on per diem acute care beds is low, and she puts the figure more at $1,200.
"But this is absolutely known: it's cheaper to have some in a proper placement, which is a long-term care facility," she said.
In respect to the long-term effects that the closure of Cascade Residence had on Burnaby Hospital, Friesen is right, Blamey said.
But, she added, Cascade Residence was very old, and the argument at the time was refurbishing it would cost more money than a whole new facility.
Blamey also said a new seniors' facility and hospital would be "an extremely expensive venture."
To read Friesen's full argument, go to Jennifer Moreau's blog at www. burnabynow.com.
jmoreau@ burnabynow.com
