Over a hundred P.E.I. long-term care beds available, but sitting empty

There are currently 103long-term care beds across P.E.I. sitting empty because there is not enough staff to look after patients in those beds.

In budget estimates earlier this week, it was revealed there are empty long-term care beds in both public and private homes.

P.E.I. Liberal MLA Robert Hendersonraised questions in the provincial legislature about the number of empty beds. He said he wasn't expecting it to be so high.

"It wasn't all that long ago that I had asked questions about this," he said. "And I think the answer was 36 [beds] at that time."

Henderson actually asked about the beds last October, and was told then Health P.E.I. had 42 vacant beds.

P.E.I.'s MinisterHealth and Wellness Ernie Hudson said the vacant beds are due tostaff shortages. Since the beginning of the COVID-19pandemic, he said health-care workers have been in high demand, and P.E.I. health-care workers have felt the strain.

"With regards to staffing,just the impact that COVID-19 positives have had...that in and of itself has has had a certain impact," Hudson said.

Health care backed up

Out of 103 beds, 40are in private care homes and 63 are in public homes.People waiting to get into a long-term care facility are often waiting inhospitalor still living at home.

We've got to have an efficient way to run our systemso we're not having the whole system backed up. Robert Henderson

Henderson saidit's a problem becausethe whole health-care systemis backed up.

"It probably would be six months, maybe a year to get a long-term care bed," he said."In most cases, the only way you get one is if somebody passes away. We've got to have an efficient way to run our systemso we're not having the whole system backed up."

On top oflooking for more health-care workers, Henderson hopes the province can findother ways to solve theproblem.

"Itstarts to give you a bigger picture to what's going wrong in our health-care system and why we can't deliver the services that [people]were expecting," he said.

'Being as proactive as possible'

Hudson agreedtheshortages may causeproblems in the health-care system, but said the province is trying to solve it.

"We're being as proactive as possible with partnering with our educational institutions and other departments," Hudson said.

Recently, the province announced it would offer free tuition for those entering P.E.I. resident care worker programs as one way to help.

Hudson said they'veincreasedthe student capacity limit in bothHolland College and the University of Prince Edward resident care workerand nursing programs. Though these take months oryears to complete,the need for long-term care is great and the province hopesthis will increase the number of health-care workers in P.E.I.