It’s a chronic problem that never seems to go away.

The term “bed-blockers” is no longer used, but the issue remains.

At any given time, around 400 hospital beds in Alberta (one-third in Edmonton) are taken up by bed-ridden seniors waiting for placement in long-term care/nursing home/assisted-living facilities.

The wait times aren’t readily available from Alberta Health Services, but in some Ontario hospitals, the wait time has grown longer and longer, from an average 18 days in 2004 to 69 days today.

The cost per patient per day in Alberta hospitals is $1,500 per day. Long-term institutional care cost is $100 to $200 per day.

The NDP government is fulfilling an election promise to create 2,000 more long-term care beds by 2019, with $500 million committed to date.

The cost to the health care system won’t drop – those hospital beds will be filled the moment they are vacated. But with beds freed up, horrific emergency room wait times could be reduced.

It’s a paradox. Outside of bed-blockers, even within constrained government budgets and doing more with less, Alberta is doing well at providing home and/or institutional care for our fast-growing elderly population.

At the bottom of it all, prevention/healthy living programs of the past are bearing fruit. Participaction worked!

Doctors had been bracing for a health care tsunami as the baby boomer generation rolled into its senior years. It never came. Other than being overweight, seniors are healthier than in the past. Boomers stopped smoking, are exercising more and eating better than previous generations. Miracle drugs truly are miracle drugs.

If you’re a “young” senior today, spared from the present-day plagues of cancer and dementia, you’ll likely have an enjoyable and healthy life right into your late 80s.

But the longer we live, the more complex our medical problems will be. Eventually the boomers will end up in the hospital waiting for long-term beds, but in their late 80s, not mid-70s.

Meanwhile, Alberta’s hybrid model of “continuing care” is working quite well. It’s a partnership, uneasy at times but functional, between the provincial government, not-for-profit societies like the St. Michael’s Health Group or The Good Samaritan Society, and private-for-profit providers like Christenson Communities.

In general, the provincial government/Alberta Health Services does the assessments and makes recommendations for those needing help – be it home-care, supportive living, or long-term care. The government sets and enforces standards.

If not-for-profits or private companies receive capital funding from the province, they must stick to a government schedule of accommodation fees. Low-income seniors are subsidized individually through the Alberta Seniors’ Benefit program. Medical care is covered – like all Albertans – by the government.

As long as a private operator is not receiving government funding (outside of medical services for residents), they can charge what the market will bear, usually for deluxe accommodation, meal plans, recreational programs etc.

The not-for-profit societies and private-for-profit operators were apprehensive when the New Democrat government was elected in 2015 – given a campaign platform that favoured public sector health-care over the private/non-profit/government model.

But the reality of governing has eased such ideological fervour. An attempt to replace DynaLIFE lab services with a government medical laboratory went nowhere. Funding commitments from the previous government to create new long-term-care beds were honoured by the New Democrats, even to private-for-profit operators.

At the same time, unions are taking advantage of a union-sympathetic government and are pushing for publicly-owned, fully unionized new long-term-care facilities, along with unionization campaigns at private-for-profit and not-for-profit continuous-care operations.

Unions improve the lot of the workers, but they also increase operating costs. Unionized personnel at one long-term care facility had a choice of taking a flu shot or not. But those who didn’t, because of union rules, could not work during an influenza outbreak. They were sent home — with full pay.

While the government appears to let sleeping dogs lie, there’s worry that a re-elected NDP gang would do away with the hybrid model and only support publicly-owned continuing-care facilities with 100% unionized staff.

The problem won’t go away, despite the laudable commitment to grow long-term bed creation by 15% in the next four years.

The age tsunami may be delayed, but it will come.

Right now, there’s a half-million Albertans over 65. In 17 years, there will be over a million.