The number of veterans at Halifax’s Camp Hill Hospital is dwindling, leaving more and more empty rooms, but there’s disagreement over how to use the facility once the last old soldier passes away.
Only veterans who served overseas in the Second World War and Korean War can be admitted to the hospital under the current rules, but the federal government is being encouraged to open it up to all who have served.
As it stands, the plan is for units of Camp Hill Hospital to gradually close until, eventually, no veterans are admitted.
NDP MP Peter Stoffer, who represents Sackville-Eastern Shore and serves as the Opposition’s veterans affairs critic, says the hospital could be put to better use if admission requirements were opened up.
“What the province of Nova Scotia should do is go back to the federal government and say, look, you’ve got an awful lot of so-called modern-day veterans, those post ’54, that are in their late 70s and 80s that could use this type of facility,” Stoffer said.
Only 160 of the hospital’s 175 rooms are in use, and a section of one floor has stopped taking new admissions.
Veterans Affairs Minister Erin O’Toole said it’s Capital Health and the provincial government, not Ottawa, who is responsible for that decision.
O’Toole said veterans will get long-term care services if they have been injured.
“If in their life, when they’re old or need long-term care, they will have that from Canada. Full stop,” O’Toole said.
But, because of the admission restrictions, it won’t be at Camp Hill, he said.
“We will contract beds as they are demanded by veterans,” he said.
Valerie Mitchell-Veinotte, executive director of the Royal Canadian Legion’s Nova Scotia and Nunavut command, said more veterans should be allowed to benefit the Camp Hill’s facilities.
“The criteria for eligibility at Camp Hill should be expanded to all veterans,” she said.
Mitchell-Veinotte said there’s history and irreplaceable expertise at Camp Hill that the modern-day veteran, those who served after Korea through to the present day, could use.
The health authority has no control over the admission criteria, but Capital Health Acting CEO Barbara Hall says there’s another problem.
She said she doesn’t believe Camp Hill is suitable for modern veterans.
“This isn’t the kind of long-term care facility that in a few years that they’ll want,” Hall said.
Though no decisions have yet been made on Camp Hill’s future, Hall said one possibility is Camp Hill could be used for civilians needing long-term care.
Roland Lawless, a Canadian Forces veteran, said modern veterans deserve a place to go, so they don’t end up on the street.
“(The admission requirements) are a failsafe for the government to get out of the business of taking care of our aging veterans and veterans in need,” he said.
With files from CTV Atlantic’s Rick Grant
