There were more Canadians living in residential care facilities in 2005-06, reports Statistics Canada, and most of them were living in private, for-profit centres.
Canada's 4,300 or so residential care facilities looked after 235,916 residents in '05-06, a 2.3 per cent increase from 2004/2005, according to the most recent data from the Residential Care Facilities Survey.
Nursing homes and other residences for the aged dominated the industry, constituting 49 per cent of facilities, 82 per cent of beds and 80 per cent of revenues.
Facilities looking after people with mental health problems accounted for 45 per cent of facilities, 15 per cent of beds and 16 per cent of revenues.
The remainder included such facilities as centres for people with a physical disability, homeless people, or delinquents.
The private sector dominated the area of residential care for the aged. Private facilities accounted for 54 per cent of residences for the aged, with non-profit and public facilities having similar shares of the rest.
The private sector had 81,085 approved beds in facilities for the aged in 2005/2006. Private facilities had 76.4 beds per facility, and were smaller than non-profit facilities, which had 95.1 beds per facility, and public facilities, with 89.1.
Private residences for the aged provided care at a lower cost than public or non-profit residences in 2005/2006. Private facilities had average expenditures of $39,001 per bed, compared with $52,845 for non-profit facilities and $59,421 for those that were publicly-owned. This applied to all of Canada except Quebec, where such data does not exist.
Even though they accounted for almost half of beds, private facilities for the aged accounted for only 43 per cent of full-time employees, 37 per cent of part-time employees, 39 per cent of paid hours and 36 per cent of wages.
