Niagara needs more long term care workers
Niagara’s regional chairman will be asking the provincial government for new funding for long-term care home staff.
And the Region’s public health committee has placed its support behind a St. Catharines city council motion also pressuring the government to provide four hours of care for each resident, daily.
Committee members supported the motions Tuesday, following presentation from St. Catharines city councillor Sal Sorrento and Niagara’s senior services director, Henriette Koning, who discussed the pressures staff at Niagara’s nine long-term care homes face caring for residents who are far more frail than they have been in the past.
Sorrento, who has been looking after a family member at Linhaven, said many of the residents have co-morbidities and more assistance from staff, limiting their time to help others.
“We observe very heavy care loads. We see it every day,” Sorrento said. “We need more staff.”
Koning said incoming residents are more frail after remaining in their own homes longer, as well as being discharged from hospitals earlier, requiring more complex care at facilities such as long-term care homes.
Although she said regional staff continue to look for efficiencies, any additional savings that can be realized are put towards increasing costs due to inflation rather than increasing staff levels.
Regional Chair Alan Caslin said he has met with MPP Jim Bradley and a Ministry of Finance representative to ask for additional funding for more long-term care home staff.
“I asked how the funding would be coming to us and also what the timeline of that funding would be,” he said, adding that meeting took place Monday. Caslin, however, added that he would be happy to write a letter asking for additional funding.
Pelham Mayor Dave Augustyn pointed out that another option would be for the Region to increase funding itself.
“One option would be for us to levy more and give it to you to do the job and increase it up to the next level,” he told Koning. “I’d like to know what other municipalities are levying.”
St. Catharines Coun. Brian Heit, however, pointed out that the cost of hiring additional staff needed might be too much for the Region to pay on its own.
Heit estimated that it might require as many 300 additional full-time staff members at a cost that would be “staggering for the Region to be adding to our tax levy.”
Heit was also concerned that four hours of care might not be enough, pointing out that the original provincial report recommending the staff increase was written a decade ago, with 10-year-old data.
He suggested asking for an updated independent review of appropriate long-term care home staff levels.