Ontario nursing homes losing staff
• An ongoing exodus of nurses and other key workers from longterm care has exacerbated what was already a critical staffing shortage before the COVID-19 onslaught, representatives of the sector said on Thursday.
The critical lack of personnel, they said, makes it difficult to use the 6,000 empty nursing home beds as a safety valve for hospitals struggling with an influx of patients.
In addition, about 38,500 people remain on waitlists for admission to long-term care facilities, a number expected to rise to 40,000, according to the Ontario Long Term Care Association.
“Once the virus did get into the homes, what happened was the staffing models crashed,” said Donna Duncan, the association’s CEO. “We continue to lose our staff, especially regulated health professionals — nurses, RPNS — to other parts of the system.”
Ontario data show more than 15,000 long-term care residents were stricken with COVID-19 over the past year, with 3,766 deaths to date accounting for the majority of the province’s pandemic fatalities. Almost 6,900 staff have been infected, 11 fatally.
Critics have pointed to poor pay and working conditions as the driving force behind the staffing exodus, along with more attractive employment options now in vaccination clinics or at testing sites.
While government wage top-ups last year helped draw some workers away from home care into longterm care, Duncan said, the subsequent outflow has only made matters worse. She also cited the “stigma” around the long-term sector as a factor in the critical staffing shortage.
“People are just moving,” Duncan said. “It’s pretty much the same workforce which is creating huge pressures on our ability to meet the clinical needs of our residents.”
Residents and relatives have also complained at being largely confined to their rooms, a situation they’ve compared to the kind of harmful solitary confinement found in prisons.
“Our residents have largely been locked up for 14 months,” Duncan said, also acknowledging the physical and psychological harm to them.