‘Critical’ shortage of care workers
Seniors lodges struggle to fill posts despite cash injection, report says
When Health Minister Adrian Dix announced a $240-million cash infusion last February to hire care workers for seniors in residential care, Debra Hauptman wasted no time.
The CEO of Langley Lodge Seniors Care has filled more than 13 full-time staff positions, which added 54 care hours per day, including new opportunities for recreation and physiotherapy.
“It was long overdue. We haven’t had an increase in staffing in many years,” she said. “The government had announced new funding the year before and it never came and it never came and the staff was losing hope.”
Hauptman added a care aide to each of the six Langley Lodge units, which house 26 clients.
“Instead of each care aide having 13 residents to care for, they each have eight residents,” she said.
“It’s huge, so we were over the moon.”
Many of the new hires were drawn from casual staff who are now working full time.
But that means the number of casual staff available to fill in for sick days and vacations is critically low. It also means that the pipeline of potential new hires is all but empty and hundreds more care aides will be needed as the new cash flows into the system over the next three years.
The provincial government’s goal is to increase to 3.36 the average number of direct care hours seniors in residential care receive each day. Until now, workers at 85 per cent of B.C.’s 293 residential care facilities have spent far less time each day — an average of 3.14 hours of direct care — with their residents, the B.C. Seniors Advocate found.
About four per cent of private operators meet the goal of 3.36 direct care hours, while one-third of the health authority-run facilities meet the target. Although both receive their funding from health authorities, private operators have historically received less money.
At the time of the announcement, Dix estimated 1,500 new jobs will need to be filled immediately, including 900 care aides and 335 nurses.
“The first wave of hires has drained our supply of casual workers and we will need at least 2,800 people over the next few years to keep up,” said Daniel Fontaine, CEO of the B.C. Care Providers Association.
The association has been working proactively with dozens of organizations in the sector to come up with a human resources plan that will ensure a steady and increasing supply of qualified workers, Staff shortages remain acute in the In-
terior and in rural B.C.
“We absolutely welcome the announcement and think that it is long overdue. What was not evident was a plan to find all those people,” he said. “The kind of hiring that needs to happen simply can’t be done with the status quo.”
The BCCPA has released a strategy paper, titled Situation Critical: A made-in-B.C. plan, to address the seniors care labour shortage.
“When we don’t have enough staff it leaves seniors waiting for their regular activities. They don’t see the same care providers with new people always coming in on call,” said Fontaine.
The report makes 10 recommendations that the provincial government and health authorities can take to refill the pipeline with qualified care providers.
Access to training, financial assistance and improved awareness of seniors care as a career were at the top of the list.
“People don’t realize that seniors care is the fastest growing sector in B.C.’s economy,” said association spokesman Mike Klassen.
The plan also calls for expanding the provincial loan forgiveness program for care aides willing to work in rural and remote areas. The province could also lower barriers for trained care aides and nurses coming from other countries and provinces, especially since the number of care aides graduating from training programs in B.C. is declining.
Assessment agencies that ensure the competency of aides and nurses trained outside B.C. charge between $800 and $2,000 for the service and can take 90 days or more to process applicants.
The plan also calls for improving access to work permits for foreign students in Canadian health-care training programs.
The sector is also plagued by disparities in wages and benefits in a field divided between governmentrun and privately held facilities, community care workers, union and non-union workforces and a jumble of collective agreements, all of which can lead to difficulty attracting and retaining employees.