After a decade-long run as BC Seniors Advocate, Isobel Mackenzie is calling it a day.
In her final act, she released the 2023 Monitoring Seniors Services Report, a province-wide snapshot on how aging population is doing.
In it, the report revealed Violent offences against seniors in BC that were reported to the RCMP have risen by 55% over the last five years.
In her final interview with Vista Radio, Mackenzie there are a few reasons on why the trajectory is swinging upward in BC.
“Seniors will own a house, seniors will likely have an investment account, which produces a small income for them. They rely on other people for supports for services. They could be more physically vulnerable as they are not as strong as they once were and they can’t move as quickly as they once did.”
“All of these kinds of factors layered on top of what is overall increases in issues related to personal safety in BC and other jurisdictions and that is why I think you are seeing the five-year trend line look how it looks.”
Mackenzie hopes to see an increase in the life expectancy of our aging population as the severity of COVID-19 wanes down.
Life expectancy at 65 is the average number of years that a person can expect to live after age 65.
B.C. seniors who are 65 years of age could expect to live an additional 21.8 years.
Senior women can expect to live an additional 23.3 years, and senior men can expect to live 20.2 years.
The life expectancy at 65 years of age was the same as the previous year but dropped 0.3 years compared to 2018.
According to the report, over 36,300 seniors passed away in 2022, a 4% spike from the previous year as well as a 20% increase when compared to 2018.
Vancouver Coastal Health had the lowest fatality rate (306 per 10,000 seniors) while Northern Health had the highest fatality rate (391 per 10,000 seniors).
COVID-19 climbed into the top five causes of death for seniors in two years ago.
The other four were cancer, heart disease, cerebrovascular disease (including ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke), and chronic lower respiratory diseases (including bronchitis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and asthma).
Mackenzie hopes the life expectancy rate pushes back to pre-pandemic levels soon.
“What we will hopefully see as that as COVID-19 has receded in terms of severity with both mutations of the virus and with advancements of the vaccine, that we were going to see our life expectancy bounce back to what it was five years ago.”
“The impact it is having on a five-year time trend is significant and you also see what we call excess mortality –so the rate of death per 10,000 people went up as a population by 4% in the five-year period. That is telling us that the impact of COVID-19 had a disproportionate effect on seniors.”
In terms of housing, 95% of BC seniors live independently in private dwellings – half of which are in single-family homes while the remainder are in apartments, condo, townhome or duplex.
The vacancy rate for seniors looking for a one-bedroom apartment in Prince George is 2.9% – higher than the provincial average of 1.1.
Mackenzie admits while that’s way better than Victoria, Vancouver, Kelowna and Terrace – it’s nothing to write home about.
“You want to have your vacancy rate around 4% in order for what they call stability between being a renter and a landlord. I think the pattern we are seeing is that people are staying in the rural communities, and they are aging in the rural communities. We are seeing a bit of people but it’s not dramatic people will sell their urban house for a significant amount of money, and they will move to rural BC where they can get a house for a quarter of a price of the house they sold in the Lower Mainland and they will retire there because they can travel on the money they put in their pockets. That does happen, but not as frequently.”
In 2022, B.C.’s seniors’ population was 1,058,462.
It has grown 16% over five years and 41% over ten years.
Northern Health has a shade under 50-thousand residents who are in the 65+ age category – making up 17% of the regional population.
Furthermore, Alternate level of care (ALC) is a designation used when patients occupy a hospital bed after their treatment has ended and they no longer require acute care services.
Other non-acute medical conditions can prevent discharge from hospital to home resulting in waiting periods until suitable care services, such as LTC or home support, become available or medical conditions change.
The average stay in ALC was 21 days (about 3 weeks) for seniors in BC; however, that figure was four times longer in the north, at roughly 84 days (about 3 months).
“Overwhelmingly, seniors in the north are living in single-family houses versus condos, which is about half the people in urban centres are living in. Sometimes those houses are not suitable to return to from the hospital without some form of renovation – northern seniors or rural seniors are more likely to live alone, because they are less likely to be married as they are more likely widowed.”
“Those are all compounding factors,” added Mackenzie.
As her time as Seniors advocate ends, Mackenzie is proud to have covered all corners of the province and reached the elderly population – however, when she looks back at the last decade, she wishes more could have been done regarding senior centres.
“What is lacking is this provincial map if you will, of the 85 senior centres in BC with little pins in the map and every community has this centre where a senior can go and get a bowl of soup if they need it, eat with some friends and maybe do some chair yoga. Also, they can be connected with all the other supports and services they need with a way of ensuring that all of these senior centres were able to operate with a core minimum everywhere.”
Today (Friday) is Mackenzie’s last day as Seniors Advocate. Dan Leavitt takes over the portfolio on Monday.
A link to the full report can be found here.