'Bed blockers' ate up 298 years of bed time at LHSC over 4 years

As London's emergency rooms stand on the cusp of being swamped by another busy flu and winter fracture season,new numbers obtained by CBCNews are giving us an idea of the state of hospital gridlock within London's largest healthcare facility.

We are making due in makeshift situations in our hospitals- Vicki McKenna, Ontario Nurses Association

So-called "bed blockers," people who occupy a hospital bed where they no longer require treatment but can't be released from hospital,have eaten up 298 years worth of bed time at London Health Science Centre over a period of four years.

The numbers,obtained through a freedom of information request, offer a snap shot of howLHSCstruggles to cope with"alternate level of care" (ALC) patients, the health system's official label for people who are sometimesreferred to colloquiallyas "bed blockers."

• This St. Thomas grandma has been 'stuck' in hospital for over 3 years

Many of the patients are vulnerable, often elderlyand suffer from cognitive disorders such as dementia as they wait for space in a nursing home or home care.

The numbers reveal that from 2014 to 2017, LHSCdischarged a total of 5,569ALCpatients, who spent a combined 108,688 days occupying hospital beds. That's roughly298 years.

In 2016 alone, the hospital discharged 1,512 ALC patients, who spent a combined total of 31,677 days occupying hospital beds reserved for the type of care they didn't need.

The worst case at LHSC saw a patient marooned at thehospital for a total of 929days, or almost two and a half years, before being discharged to a nursing homein 2015.

That's 140times theaverage hospital stay atLHSC, which is 6.6days, according to its own data.

'It's become our reality'

While the numbers might seem surprising to those outside the healthcare field, they're no surprise to Vicki McKenna, a veteran nurse who worked for years at LHSCand is now the president of the Ontario Nurses Association.

"It's astounding to think about it, but it's become our reality,unfortunately," she said.

McKenna said years of cuts by successive provincial governments have forced hospitals to pare down costs on staff, equipment and facilities, which has reduced the number of beds available and the number of staff to treat patients.

"Some of the funding decisions and cuts have been catastrophic in many instances."

In 2016, LHSC closed its 15-bed transitional care unit, a place where patients with no place to go would end up when they were waiting for appropriate care to open up.

The reason it closed, according to LHSC, is because the provincial government ended the $1.7 million in funding required to keep it open.

"We are making-do in makeshift situations in our hospitals and other facilities to try and make-doand it's not good enough," McKenna said."There isn't enough money in our hospitals for what our reality is today."

"In order to build capacity, it's an investment," she said. "The back side of that, the hospitals are trying to cope with the volumes they (have),with not enough money and you must be within budget."

Overcrowding regularly makes headlines

On top of hospitals being short on money,Graham Webb, a lawyer and the executive director for the Advocacy Centre for the Elderly, said Ontario is also facing a demographic crunch, wherethe aging population outstrips the system's ability to properly accommodate their needs.

We don't have enough appropriate long term care home beds- Graham Webb, the Advocacy Centre for the Elderly

"We don't have enough appropriate long term care home beds," Webb said. "That's creating a backlog in hospitals where patients needing long-term care really have no where else to go."

"I don't think it's always been like this. I've been with the Advocacy Centre for the Elderly for the last 23 years and certainly it's always been the case there have been patients waiting in hospital for admission to long term care homes, but never at the proportion we're seen now," he said.

The shortage of beds has regularly been making headlines. From a man almost marooned in Mexico because there was no room at London hospitals, to a woman languishing in a St Thomas hospital for three years, to a 50-year marriedseparatedby hospital administrators trying to free up space, even reports of staff being "taxed" because ofovercrowded conditions.

The pressure on hospital administrators to relieve overcrowding has forced healthcare providers such as LHSC to resort to intimidation tactics, such as sending patient letters threatening to charge the full cost of a hospital bed, up to $1,840 per day, in orderto get patients who sometimes require some form of healthcare, to leave.

It's something lawyers like Webb are starting to see more often and he argues the threats areoutside ofwhat the law actually allows hospitals to do.

"These exorbitant fees are outside their regulations and we think they're without legal authority," he said, noting that patients who are inappropriately asked to leave should refuse.

"They should not buckle under to pressure for an inappropriate discharge placement," he said. "They should really be saying ,'No we're not accepting that' because if it's a substitute decision under the Healthcare Consent Act, it is not the right decision to agree to a placement that doesn't meet the patient's care needs."

Ending 'hallway healthcare'

"Our top priority at all times is always the health and well-being of our patients," LHSCvice-president Julie Trpovski said in a written statement to CBC News Friday.

"Like many hospital across the province, London Health Sciences Centre experiences surges in the number of patients that have been designated Alternate Level of Care (ALC)."

"We are pleased to note that, as evidenced by our reportable data, we have been successfully reducing the total number of ALC days year-over-year since 2016," she wrote.

"Surges" however are unpredictable and with flu season already here, the numbers could easily change.In the first seven months of 2018, LHSChas discharged a total of 621 ALCpatients, who occupied hospital beds in units where they no longer required care for 13,253 days.

If the year continues at its current pace, LHSCwill be on par to a similar year as 2017.

Government promises to fix problem

Ontario's $19 billion healthcare system has 20,000 acute care beds across the province. The government estimates that as many as 15 per cent of them are occupied by patients who no longer require care, but still have nowhere else to go.

Last month, Premier Doug Ford claimed to have ended "hallway medicine once and for all in this province" when hisProgressive Conservative governmentannounced $90 million to help ease hospital gridlock across the province and open up 1,100 "new" beds.

It's anearly identical announcementmade bythe previous Liberal government in 2017, when it pledged $100 million to help open up 1,200 "new" beds to ease overcrowding in hospitals during the busy flu season.

During the provincial election campaign, Ford pledgedto create 6,000 new long-term care beds over the next five years in order to build capacity in the province.