Rules, funds needed for care
In the wake of a comprehensive review that identified serious problems with care provided to seniors in long-term care facilities and the government’s throne speech commitment that, “We must do better,” Health Minister Dustin Duncan needs to ensure that he and the health regions are acting in unison to improve things.
Unfortunately, news reports this week suggest that the government and those in charge of operating the facilities are on different pages, or perhaps even reading from different books, when it comes to addressing the needs of Saskatchewan seniors who require nursing home care.
NDP Leader Cam Broten’s questions this week regarding the impact of the government’s decision two years ago to drop the requirement that care homes provide each residents with two hours of staff time per day, and Mr. Duncan’s rationale for the move, point to a serious disconnect between the policy and its implementation.
The minister suggested that removal of the two-hour minimum was meant to improve the care of residents by enabling facilities managers to personalize the care provided to each senior. Yet, it appears that some care facility administrators have interpreted the regulation changes to mean that such things as weekly baths, hot meals, changing of bed linens or even cleaning of certain areas in the care facilities can be considered discretionary items when they are short-staffed.
Circling that square is impossible, given that the problems identified in the report commissioned by Mr. Duncan are rooted in a shortage of staff that health region CEOs such as Maura Davies in Saskatoon say cannot be fixed with the $10 million “urgent action fund” the government announced in response.
While the minister pointed to the case of an individual with a severe form of dementia whose condition makes it impossible for staff to bathe her weekly, that doesn’t justify scrapping the minimum standard of care for everyone or to accept that baths be considered “non-essential.”
If, as Mr. Duncan says, the goal is to move to a system, such as in British Columbia or Manitoba, which requires providing “skilled care with professional supervision consistent with the needs of the client,” then it’s incumbent upon the government to put in place the regulations that stipulate that standard of care and then allocate the resources required to provide it.
“The way that we are moving is toward individualized care,” Mr. Duncan told reporters. “In fact, most of our residents would have more care than would have been in the standards.”
Just how he expects those seniors to receive more care and more personalized care when his fact-finding report identifies the horrific results of already inadequate resources — for instance, persons left to soil themselves because no one is available to help them to a toilet — is puzzling.
Comments from Ms. Davies that the government’s action fund most likely will go for one-time expenses such as buying more patient lifts, replacing nurse-call systems or even painting interior walls, but not to add needed staff, underlines the challenge.
We certainly must do better.
The editorials that appear in this space represent the opinion of The StarPhoenix. They are unsigned because they do not necessarily represent the personal views of the writers. The positions taken in the editorials are arrived at through discussion among the members of the newspaper’s editorial board, which operates independently from the news departments of the paper.