Family struggles to move mother across country to B.C. care home

Kelowna residents Darla Brown and Nikki Drinkwalter fear their mother's mental health is getting worse by the day. The 71-year-old, who is blind and partially paralyzed, is on the other side of the country, in Crapaud, PEI, where she lives alone in a subsidized care home following the recent death of her husband.

"She's depressed and she's lonely," said Drinkwalter. "A lot of our [phone] conversations are very quiet, she doesn't have a lot to talk about. She's depressed, and she doesn't want to be where she's at."

"She hasn't had visitors," Brown added. "It's very unfortunate."

Brown and Drinkwalter have been trying to move their mom, Elaine Guyan, to a similar care centre in B.C. so she can be closer to family and hopefully improve her wellbeing.

They thought it would be a seamless transition, but over the past two years they say they've run into a series of bureaucratic challenges — including residency requirements and extensive waitlists — that they fear have rendered the move insurmountable.

"We've been directed to different agencies, different people, and they're all very sympathetic to the cause but at the end of the day they say they can't do anything about it," said Brown.

Sisters Nikki Drinkwalter and Darla Brown review denied submissions to have a residency requirement waived for their mother's assisted care application. (Brady Strachan/CBC)

Provincial officials familiar with their situation have acknowledged their circumstances are uniquely challenging, while public health advocates say their circumstances shine a light on glaring holes within B.C.'s assisted living sector, particularly ongoing capacity challenges.

"I talk to families that are confronted with this all the time," said Terry Lake, CEO of the B.C. Care Providers Association. "I really empathize with people in this situation, but the reality is, even if they qualified to access assisted living in B.C., there's simply a lack of capacity."

Story continues

CBC News has reached out to B.C.'s Ministry of Health for comment.

Assisted care roadblocks

Health care falls under provincial, not federal, jurisdiction in Canada, meaning subsidized care patients in one province can't simply be transferred to a similar facility in another.

Brown and Drinkwalter say the biggest challenge for getting their mom onto a waitlist for subsidized assisted care in B.C. is the province's three-month residency requirement, which applies to all community care services in the province.

That requirement can be waived under certain circumstances, including if the patient has no loved ones or family supports nearby. However, the daughters said their application was denied by Interior Health.

Their other alternative is to move Guyan to B.C. and pay for her to live in private care and then apply to be on the waitlist once she is officially considered a resident. However, they would have to keep her in private care until she's accepted, which could take years.

Guyan is currently living in an assisted care facility in Crapaud, PEI. (Submitted by Darla Brown)

"To pay for a private facility for two years minimum, that's going to be $36,000 a year — we can't afford that," said Brown.

B.C. Seniors Advocate Isobel MacKenzie acknowledged these cases can be challenging for families but said qualification criteria is in place to prevent people from abusing the system.

"Their only option would be to pay privately for that care, which could be quite expensive," she said.

"It's challenging ... [but] what you don't also want to do is set up a situation where I can't get into my long-term care home in another province, or it's more expensive in another province, and so I come to British Columbia, and what about the British Columbians that have been waiting on that waitlist," she added.

Isobel Mackenzie, British Columbia’s seniors advocate, says situations involving families trying to transfer loved ones from out-of-province into assisted care in B.C. can be challenging. (Mike McArthur/CBC)

Capacity challenges

According to B.C.'s latest senior services report, there were 1,055 seniors waiting for subsidized assisted living in 2023, marking a 34 per cent increase from the previous year. Interior Health's waitlist increased by 29 per cent.

The report also noted the total of publicly funded long-term care beds fell by 12 per cent over that time.

Lake, who is also a former health minister, says the capacity challenges mean families like Guyan's can't count on getting a unit anytime soon, even if they manage to meet residency requirements and get on a waitlist.

"The system simply is not keeping up with demand," he said. "It's all about capacity, because people who have lived in British Columbia all their lives face the same problem when they need assisted living."

"That's where we are with health care in this country, it's rationed and these very difficult questions of fairness have to come into play when it comes to allocating these resources," Lake said.

Terry Lake, former British Columbia health minister, says capacity challenges for assisted care in B.C. means waitlists have swelled. (The Canadian Press/Chad Hipolito)

A cautionary tale

Lake says the best thing families can do is to make care-giving plans and arrangements ahead of time as their loved ones age.

"It's often when people fall off the cliff of health-care needs that they're confronted with difficulty accessing the system," he said.

In the meantime, Brown and Drinkwalter hope the health authority will reconsider waiving the residency requirement for their mom so she can be put on a waitlist and eventually be transferred to B.C. when her name is called.

"We're not shopping around, we're her family, and we want her here," said Drinkwalter.

"I can't imagine we're the only ones going through this," Brown added.