Health authority CEO says alternative care patient increase comes as no surprise

The number of patients waiting in hospital beds for an alternate level of care (ALC) in Newfoundland and Labrador has more than doubled in the last five months, and the CEO of the province's health authority says he is not surprised. 

"The fact is, the need for hospital beds is driven by people getting old and fragile," Pat Parfrey said in a recent meeting with reporters.

"We have an aging population, and we've gone up by 25 per cent in the last decade of seniors, and we're going to go up by 25 per cent in the next decade."

According to an access-to-information request filed by the Progressive Conservatives, which CBC News has reviewed, there are 327 people waiting in ALC beds as of May 2025. This includes seniors requiring long-term care.

That's an increase of 181 people since December 2024.

"That's a full hospital. That's not good enough," PC Leader Tony Wakeham told reporters on Thursday.

Shortage an old issue

But Parfrey questions the numbers. In central and western Newfoundland, a shortage of ALC beds is not a new issue.

"We've had ALC levels of 30 and 40 per cent in central and western for years, and it's directly related to not having the places that frail elderly people can go into," he said.

In St. John's, Parfrey said the number of ALC patients is less than 10 per cent at the Health Sciences Centre and less than 20 percent at St. Clare's Mercy Hospital. 

In the meantime, he said, the province's health-care facilities have maintained the same number of ALC beds for two decades. 

"It's not in the slightest bit surprising that we're running into problems," he said. 

The health authority is developing a plan to address the shortage of beds, which Parfrey said involves getting more acute care beds in St. John's.

To do so, he said, NLHS must provide more beds for transitional care, which it currently provides at Chancellor Park in St. John's.

"We would need to provide other places more beds for restorative care. We're going to open beds at the Miller Centre for restorative care and we need more long-term care facilities," Parfrey said.

Gridlocked hospitals

Health Minister Krista Lynn Howell told reporters on Thursday the province's hospitals get caught in a cycle when beds are not available.

"We do realize that it's a cycle where the beds are not available in our acute care system because there are a number of people waiting to be placed in whatever appropriate venue," Howell said.

Parfrey compared the cycle to a gridlock. 

"The ambulances come along and there's no place to put the patient, and you get offload delay, and that leads to inefficiencies. And because you don't have enough beds or they're occupied by people who need a different level of care, the emergency rooms are getting blocked up, and people are in corridors," he said. "You get gridlock."

Parfrey said NLHS will offer the province a plan that outlines short, medium, and long-term approaches to solve the overcapacity problem within the next few weeks.

When asked by CBC News if the plan should have been made previously, given the knowledge of the province's aging population, Parfrey said, "maybe that's true."

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