One-fourth of Oahu residents will be over 60 years old by 2030 and it’s time that hospitals prepare for the aging population.
Fortunately, St. Francis Healthcare System of Hawaii is taking steps to prepare for the increasing number of seniors, and other medical organizations should do the same.
St. Francis is investing $10 million to convert three floors of its former hospital in Liliha into a 100-bed, skilled-nursing facility, the start of an envisioned long-term care campus for the elderly. Plans call for independent living, assisted living, a memory care unit and other services for seniors.
The move comes three months after the opening of a 15,000-square-foot center in Ewa Villages, called the St. Francis Intergenerational Center, where aging parents in need of assistance and young children can be dropped off so they can spend time together.
St. Francis sold its Liliha and Ewa hospitals six years ago but the sites were returned last year after the buyer, Hawaii Medical Center, filed for bankruptcy and closed the hospitals.
The Ewa hospital was sold in December to The Queen’s Health Systems, which plans to reopen the acute-care hospital next year, a needed facility for an area with increasing population.
As baby boomers continue to gray, Hawaii residents aged 65 and older are projected to grow by 45 percent over the next 15 years, according to "America’s Health Rankings Senior Report: A Call to Action," commissioned by the United Health Foundation.
Fortunately, Hawaii is sixth among states in health among seniors and first in the country on behavioral measures, but is low in rates of smoking, obesity and physical inactivity and 49th for the percentage enrolled in hospice care within six months before their deaths.
The report, released Wednesday, is the first of its kind, so everybody can "look at this population and be advocates for improving the health of this group," said Dr. Ron Fujimoto, chief medical officer of the UnitedHealthcare Community Plan for Hawaii. "This segment of the population is growing rapidly."
The numbers certainly necessitate action now to ensure continued quality of life and health care as more of our population ages.
Toward that end, the elderly can be thankful for the Clarence T.C. Ching Foundation, which is donating $4 million to convert nearly 50,000 square feet of space in three of the five stories of the former Sullivan hospital building in St. Francis-Liliha into skilled nursing for people who have significant deficiencies and thus require constant nursing care.
That is important because the cost of nursing home care has risen in Hawaii by at least 5 percent a year over the past five years, reaching the current annual cost of $127,568 in a semi-private room and $145,270 in a private room, according to Genworth Financial, a seller of long-term care policies.
Health care providers must find ways to make nursing both caring and affordable.
