VANCOUVER -- Dave von Holtum is tired of hospitals and long-term care.
What the 65-year-old Vancouver resident wants is to go home.
And the community is rallying around him with the goal of making that happen.
Von Holtum has spent most of the past four years living at St. Paul's Hospital, where he is hooked up to medical equipment for 12 hours a day so he can get the nutrition he needs to stay alive. His condition is the result of complications from surgery for a blocked bowel. He is now living at George Pearson Centre.
But he wants the province to provide home support so he can get his care in his own residence.
"I'm absolutely desperate to get out. I'm taking up a space that somebody who needs it could be in," he said.
"It's just extremely depressing being here. I'm just removed from everybody, my friends and family," he added.
After repeated requests, the B.C. Ministry of Health told CTV News the average cost for a standard ward inpatient hospital day for the 2019-20 fiscal year was about $1,400.
That could put the cost of four years in hospital at more than $2 million.
CTV News also requested average costs for the home total parenteral nutrition (TPN) program but the information was not provided.
However, the MLA for Vancouver-Langara says home care would be significantly less expensive.
"For $400 a day, Dave could be living at home, under the care of loved ones having a more healthier life not in an institution or care facility that really he doesn't need as I understand it," said Liberal MLA Michael Lee.
"Dave clearly is someone who just needs the opportunity to have adequate homecare to deal with his nutritional medical equipment," he said.
Lee has written to Health Minister Adrian Dix asking that von Holtum's case be reviewed. He's also promised to personally raise the issue with the minister.
A non-profit organization has also stepped up to assist him in applying for funding to get home care.
Meanwhile, B.C. Seniors Advocate Isobel MacKenzie says people predominantly want to live at home, even when they are facing health challenges.
"We know there are people in long-term care that could be cared for at home if we had a more responsive health-care system," she said.
Sometimes there are programs available but people aren't connected to them, MacKenzie added.
She also said that within the healthcare community, sometimes there is a reluctance because of the risks that can exist for some patients if they live at home.
"That's really up to the individual to determine if they want to accept some of those risks and I think it's our job to support them in living where they want to live as safely as it's possible for them to live there,' she said.
Von Holtum's friends have begun a fundraiser to try and hire a private nurse to provide the home support he needs until provincial funding can be secured.
"I have an appartment that's waiting for me to move back in. All the equipment is there. All it needs is me," he said.
