URGENT ACTION FUND NOT ENOUGH, SAYS HEALTH REGION CEO

Staffing levels need upgrade

The $4 million that the Saskatoon Health Region (SHR) might receive for urgent action in long-term care homes is not enough to provide a second bath per week to residents in the region, said CEO Maura Davies.

“It gives you a sense of the magnitude of this issue in terms of bringing staffing levels up to what they need,” Davies said. Inadequate staff levels was the main problem found in a recent report on long-term care homes in Saskatchewan. A one-bath-perweek standard sometimes cannot be met; delays in helping residents to the bathroom result in people soiling themselves, and inflexible schedules mean some people must rise at 5:30 a.m.

It would cost about $4.2 million to provide a second bath per week to each of the 2,257 residents in 30 long-term care (LTC) homes in the region, vice president Sandra Blevins told the board this week.

While the Urgent Action Fund seeks business case applications for projects that will “obtain efficiencies that increase staff time for direct care,” it is unlikely to be spent simply increasing staffing because priority will be given to one-time funding proposals, Davies said.

Such proposals might address the pressing need to repair, replace or add patient lifts at most of the facilities.

That equipment would cost “hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars,” Blevins said.

One standard lift costs $12,000 and lasts between two and eight years. A ceiling-track lift with ceiling reinforcement costs $20,000 to $30,000.

Many homes need to replace special tubs and faulty nurse-call systems. Some of the money may also be used to paint interiors that haven’t been freshened up in decades.

Davies said that she doesn’t know how much the region will receive from the $10 million fund, but noted the region serves roughly 40 per cent of the province’s population and thus might expect to get that portion of the cash.

The money will be distributed in early December.

In addition to the 2,257 residents now in long term care homes in the region, 130 are waiting to get into Saskatoon homes and 35 are waiting for beds in rural homes. The number includes about 70 people who wait in hospital beds because there’s no help for them at home.

Officials predict the need for beds will increase by 100 per year, based on the growing and aging population here, Blevins said.

Saskatoon’s long term care facilities are home to residents with the greatest complexity of needs. They house old and young people, those who are frail, and those who suffer from dementia or head injuries. Some can be violent, and most have high daily nursing needs.

Some problems can be solved by training to change attitudes, and don’t necessarily cost a lot of money, Davies said.

One of the comments managers heard from residents and families was that staff should think of patients as “kings” of the residence, and that staff are coming into people’s homes when they come to work at long term care facilities, she said.