Province cuts COVID-19 funding program
Per-resident subsidy defrays extra costs linked to pandemic safeguards
Operators of private and nonprofit long-term care homes have been surprised by a Health P.E.I. decision to discontinue a federally-funded grant program aimed at ensuring homes could maintain COVID-19 infection control protocols.
A Health P.E.I. letter circulated to private long-term care homes on Jan. 22 said the grant, which provided assistance for additional costs related to staffing, personal protective equipment and enhanced cleaning measures, has been discontinued, effective Dec. 31, 2020. The grant provided an $8 per day per bed subsidy for these costs.
“In light of the environment currently, including our ever-strengthening position with respect to the virus, the supplementary pandemic grants provided to date will conclude,” the letter said.
Long-term care operators were taken by surprise. One operator, speaking on condition of anonymity, told
The Guardian he was not told about an end date for the program prior to the Jan. 22 letter.
The move comes as other regions of the country continue to see the COVID-19 pandemic exact a devastating death toll within long-term care facilities. According to the National Institute of Aging, 70 per cent of deaths related to COVID-19 across the country have been linked to long-term care.
Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Chief Public Health Office infection control protocols have required long-term care operators to assume additional costs, such as needing staff to screen visitors at entrances.
The funding was provided under a federal program, the safe restart agreement. The agreement provided P.E.I. with $4.5 million, forecasted to be spent by March 2021, earmarked for private longterm care facilities to implement CPHO protocols.
Cecil Villard, executive director of the P.E.I. Association of Licensed Community Care Facilities, said costs have increased substantially as long-term care homes have beefed up infection control practices.
“The restrictions in these facilities haven’t changed, and the facilities continue to spend money to ensure that they’re compliant with the orders from the public health office,” Villard said.
Villard suggested P.E.I.’s Chief Public Health Office and Health P.E.I. may not have been on the same page about the funding program.
“I just think there was a miscommunication between the department and Health P.E.I. The officials I talked to yesterday indicated that there was no intent to not compensate those facilities that were still experiencing expenses as a result of COVID-19,” he said.
Andrew MacDougall, director of long-term care with Health P.E.I., said the original $8 per day per resident subsidy was set at the beginning of the pandemic, in order to provide funding to long-term care operators quickly. But a later evaluation showed more was being paid to long-term care homes than they were incurring in terms of costs.
“Based on the information that was submitted for reimbursement, the funding provided significantly more than compensated for what was submitted,” MacDougall said.
MacDougall said the decision was not related to a shortage of federal funding for long-term care. He said assistance will still be provided to long-term care homes in need but said funding will be based on an “individualized discussion” with homes.
“Any home that needs any assistance to make sure that it can adhere to the guidelines of the chief public health office, that support will be provided,” MacDougall said.
Liberal health critic Robert Henderson said he was “a little surprised” by the decision. He said long-term care facilities are still incurring costs related to ensuring residents are safe.
“You would assume that there would be far worse places to spend the money on than this under a pandemic,” Henderson said.
Opposition Green health critic Trish Altass used the words “surprising and confusing” to describe the move.
“It doesn’t seem like there’s been any real communication with the long-term care homes in making this decision,” Altass said.
“A first step, I think, should have been a conversation.”