User fees now charged to some Vancouver-area hospital patients are a growing concern, says the B.C. Health Coalition.

The Vancouver Coastal Health Authority began in July to charge patients $29 a day while they're recovering in hospital after surgery or serious injury.

The fees can add up to $900 a month, which could be especially onerous for seniors, coalition co-chair Alice Edge said Wednesday.

"They are on fixed incomes," said Edge. "It is a financial burden and it is a lot of stress."

When asked about the fee, B.C. Health Minister Kevin Falcon said it makes sense, considering the cost of hospital care.

"They're now receiving room and board, convalescent care and food services," said Falcon. "They're being charged a small portion of the total cost of delivering that and I think that is entirely reasonable."

Residential care equivalent

The user fees are the same as in equivalent private care, said health authority spokesman Clay Adams.

"The fees people are being asked to pay in a convalescent care facility are exactly the same as they would be paying if they're subject to fees in a residential care facility," Adams said.

Edge said the point is that patients are in public care, not residential care.

"I think it would be news to a lot of people who have gone into acute care and then are waiting to go home and finish up their rehab and are presented a bill."

Falcon dimissed the B.C. Health Coalition's objections.

"They're opposed to patient-focused funding, they oppose the convalescent care fees, they oppose any of the innovations we introduced," he said.

B.C. NDP Health critic Adrian Dix said if it's an innovation to take money from recovering seniors, his party opposes it as well.

"What they're doing is taking people, who are hospital patients, and charging them fees. That's something, in our system, we haven't done," said Dix. "It's taking people at their most vulnerable moment and charging them for it."