There are moments when Laraine Goodban doesn’t feel like opening her eyes in the morning, as it means stepping back into the reality of her present.

The 69-year-old Miltonian has been the sole caregiver of her husband, Gordon, who suffers from Alzheimer’s disease, since he was diagnosed 14 years ago. His mental condition has deteriorated so much in the past four years that he requires care for “24 hours a day and seven days a week.”

“It’s really hard,” Goodban said of her struggle in taking care of him on her own. “I’m exhausted mentally, physically, spiritually.”

Her hope to move Gordon to Allendale Long-term Care Facility has resulted in a seemingly never-ending wait.

“We have been on the regular waiting list to get into Allendale for nearly four years,” she said, adding that it was only recently that Gordon was placed on the crisis priority list.

According to a Mississauga-Halton Local Health Integration Network (LHIN) report — a provincial agency that co-ordinates the application process for long-term care and manages the wait lists — as of Sept. 15, 2019, there are 336 people on the wait-list for a basic room and 249 people for a private room in Allendale.

On average, only one bed becomes available each month.

The Milton facility offers 200 beds — 118 private rooms and 80 beds in 40 basic rooms, with one respite bed.

As an issue that he’s been working on for a number of years, Ward 1 Coun. Colin Best said he often receives phone calls and emails from people trying to assist their loved ones to move into a long-term home.

“There’s a lot of frustration that people have in trying to get the beds,” he said.

He added that if they do get a bed, it’d be something far away from Milton — like in St. Catharines.

This is also one of Goodban’s concerns.

Right now, she has put their names in three other locations — Georgetown, Oakville and Burlington. Applicants are allowed to choose up to five facilities anywhere in Ontario, though she ultimately prefers for him to stay closer to home.

“I don’t want to lose contact with my husband of 52 years, my best friend for over 54 years,” she said, worried that she won’t be able to visit him as much due to her own physical limitations.

The local and regional councillor said that while there’s nothing on the immediate horizon to address the shortage and long wait-list, some solutions are coming in the next year or two.

Best said a report on the implementation plan of the expansion — which will provide seniors with housing and possibly long-term care — will come before regional council in the first quarter of 2020. The concept plan envisions a multi-storey building with multi-uses. The proposed complex would also house the seniors’ activity centre and other facilities.

Laura Zilke, communications strategist with the Mississauga-Halton LHIN, said in an email that “a commitment of 192 new long-term care beds has been made for the community of Milton, with an approximate service date of 2023-2024.”

Best noted that the town is looking at several possible locations for the aforementioned Schlegel Villages facility and that the town chief administrative officer is working on a report for council.

The province has also pledged to create 15,000 new long-term care beds and renovate an additional 15,000 beds over the next few years.

In a statement, MPP Parm Gill said that they are “one step closer to fulfilling this commitment with our recent call for applications from current and potential long-term care home operators to build new long-term care beds and redevelop existing ones in Ontario.”

“Our government is prioritizing projects that end hallway health care by addressing the alternate level of care issue, crisis wait times, population growth, the needs of increasingly complex residents, and an aging population. That means ensuring that long-term care beds are available where and when people need them in Milton and across the province,” Gill said.

Best acknowledges that what he’s seen so far of the additional beds still pales in comparison to the needs. Citing funding as one of the biggest challenges, the councillor hopes that the town, the region, the provincial and the federal governments will continue to work together to get things done.

“We’re on the same page now, we’ve got the regional review behind us and the federal election done,” he said.

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As for Goodban, she’d like to see those projects come to fruition.

“It’s not just me. There are hundreds of people that get swept away to the side,” she said of the growing older demographic in Milton and some of the town’s most vulnerable citizens. “It’s a really, really sad situation.”

“If they’re going to build something, they really need to hit the dirt now,” Goodban said.