The critical shortage of nursing home beds in Manitoba means seniors are spending months in hospital waiting for a space at a personal care home, and current policy means they are paying as much as $101 daily to live there.
A longstanding policy allows regional health authorities to charge a person who is deemed ready to move into a nursing home a daily residential fee — even if a bed isn’t available.
CBC News has learned over the last three years, Manitobans have paid over $15 million in residential fees while staying at a hospital waiting for transfer to long term care.
Margaret Drawson, 83, paid more than $2,600 to the Interlake-Eastern Health Authority for her 87-year-old husband to live in a hospital in Pinawa, Man.
Her husband, Gordon, 87, waited three months, because there were no personal care home beds available near his home in Lac du Bonnet, approximately 90 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg.
“The problem is when you start to pay at the hospital, you pay the same as you pay at the nursing home,” she said.
“And there is nothing going on there… You’re also sharing a room with someone else all the time, and there are no activities.”
Figures provided by regional health authorities show there are currently over 340 Manitobans waiting in hospital for a bed in long term care. Another 523 are waiting in the community.
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Married for 6 decades
Gordon Drawson spent decades working as a firefighter in Winnipeg before retiring in 1995 as a district chief, and has been married to Margaret for 62 years.
About three years ago, Gordon’s health began to decline. Three months ago, he stopped being able to walk, giving Margaret no choice but take him to the hospital on Aug. 6.
Seniors waiting for a bed in a personal care home are being charged as much as $101 a day to live in hospitals. The total paid over three years is more than $15 million.
This began what Margaret called the “waiting game.” She travelled the 20-minute drive to Pinawa every day, not knowing when or if he would be moved to a nursing home.
“It is very difficult, very emotional,” she said.
Gordon’s life in the hospital was monotonous, she said.
He spent most of his time confined to his hospital bed. Margaret would visit him, he would eat in his room, he would watch TV.
There was no time to socialize with other patients, and no one was planning activities for him.
She watched as her husband lost interest in daily life.
“That is the advantage of the personal care home. They have activities,” she said. “You sit in a dining room with people and eat your meals. You’re not isolated like you are in the hospital.”
$2,600 to live in hospital
She later learned she would have to start paying a daily fee for Gordon to stay in the hospital.
The hospital billed Margaret $101 a day for almost a month — costing her over $2,600 before a bed opened up for Gordon on Oct. 22. A few weeks before Oct. 22, they offered him a bed in Selkirk, which Margaret said would have been an impossible daily drive for her, so she refused it.
She is not alone in paying this residential charge.
Figures provided to CBC News through freedom of information laws show it’s an issue affecting rural communities the most. Of the $15 million paid by Manitobans from 2021-22 to 2023-24, over $13 million was from residents living in hospitals outside of Winnipeg.
In the Prairie Mountain Health region, people were charged almost $3 million in 2023-24. The Interlake-Eastern Regional Health Authority, where Margaret lives, charged residents over $800,000 to live at hospitals in 2023-24.
Dr. Michel Bruneau, a family doctor in Lac du Bonnet, has spent years watching his patients decline while stuck in a rural hospital, waiting for a bed to open up at a nursing home.
They deteriorate faster, the food isn’t as nutritious, and they are isolated in their rooms, he said.
“It’s something I’ve always really disagreed with. To me, it’s so wrong on so many different levels,” he said about the residential charges.
“In the nursing home, when patients get charged for the care there, they actually get a lot of programming. They get a recreational person who just gives them more enrichment and fulfilment in their life in the nursing home. They don’t get that in hospital.”
A few years ago, it took two years for one of his patients to be placed in a nursing home.
Across rural Manitoba, small hospitals have turned into makeshift nursing homes, he said.
“If you take the average small rural 20-bed hospital, there could easily be 50 per cent of the people in there who are waiting for long term care,” he said.
Under the Canada Health Act, hospitals are allowed to charge for accommodation and living assistance services if a person is no longer receiving active medical care and is awaiting transfer to long term care.
Laura Tamblyn Watts, the CEO of seniors advocacy organization CanAge, said she sees it happen across Canada. It’s an outrageous practice that needs to stop, she said.
“It’s horrendous that particularly vulnerable older people are being financially punished because they are not able to receive the care that they need and they deserve,” she said. “Nobody stays in hospital for fun.”
‘Warehoused’ in hospitals
Jane Meadus, an Ontario-based lawyer with the non-profit Advocacy Centre for the Elderly, said the original idea behind charging people was to encourage them to move to a nursing home instead of staying in the hospital for free.
But in practice, seniors end up “warehoused” in a hospital with no programming, she said.
“They don’t get anything equivalent to what they’re getting in a long term care home … and that’s unfair,” she said.
Provincial Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara said what happened to the Drawson family is “a story that we’ve heard too often” but wouldn’t commit to changing the policy of charging seniors.
Asagwara said the government is focused on building more personal care home beds. In Lac du Bonnet, shovels are supposed to be in the ground by the end of this year for a new 95-person nursing home set to open in 2027.
“I certainly appreciate frustrations that people have about paying for beds that maybe aren’t providing the same level of comprehensive care they would receive in a personal care home,” Asagwara said.
“Folks who are in hospitals, I want to be really clear, are receiving care. Folks on the front lines are doing their very best to make sure that they’re able to meet folks’ needs.”
As for the Drawsons, Gordon moved into his new home last week. The 30-bed Lac du Bonnet nursing home is located a few blocks from Margaret’s apartment, so she is no longer worried about visiting him in winter.
There is a daily happy hour where residents are allowed to have one drink. Last weekend, Gordon went to the local legion’s meat draw and played chase the ace.
These were never options for him when he was stuck in a Pinawa hospital bed.
When Margaret goes to see him in the morning, he is bathed and his hair is brushed. He gets a choice of meals every day and has his own room.
“I said to some people, ‘I think I’ve won the lottery,'” she said.