Province needs to restore lost restorative care beds, says retired P.E.I. nurse

Linda McLaughlin says she was shocked when she learned that Charlottetown's Prince Edward Home would no longer be providing restorative care to Islanders. 

Patients recovering from issues like broken hips or bad cases of the flu can be moved to restorative care units after their initial time in the hospital.

"It is very important. It gives them an extra three or four or five weeks to recuperate before they go home," said McLaughlin, who worked as a registered nurse supervisor at Prince Edward Home before retiring about 10 years ago. 

She said she recently learned that all 12 beds at Prince Edward Home that were intended for that kind of care are no longer serving that purpose. 

For patients who would benefit from restorative care, that could cause issues, she said. 

"Either they stay in the hospital longer than they should, or they go home sooner — too soon," the former health care worker said. 

Prince Edward Home stopped using the beds for restorative care during the pandemic, Health P.E.I. says. Now the space is used for dementia patients. 

Access to restorative care can get patients out of the hospital faster since it provides them with medical care outside of the hospital setting, McLaughlin pointed out. 

"That's a really necessary part of health care… to have some kind of a solution for these people that can't go home, that aren't ready to go home but don't necessarily need a long-term care bed right now, just need somewhere to recuperate for a few weeks," she said.

A lot of seniors on P.E.I. are getting older and require this kind of help, McLaughlin said, adding: "We need restorative care, whether it's here or whether it's a new building on its own." 

Prince County Hospital in Summerside has a 10-bed restorative care unit, but advocates like McLaughlin would like to see more. 

While Health P.E.I. doesn't have a near-term plan to put restorative care beds back in Prince Edward Home, it does have a longer-term idea for improving access to restorative care on the Island, said Andrew MacDougall, executive director of community health and seniors care. 

The provincial health agency is working on developing a community-care model for restorative care that would provide patients with care inside their homes, MacDougall said. 

Various factors were involved in removing the restorative care beds from Prince Edward Home, but patient outcomes were never in question, MacDougall said.