Vancouver Sun
VANCOUVER — The B.C. government appears to be considering mandatory minimum staff levels for nursing homes.
Such a minimum “certainly makes sense,” Daryl Plecas, the parliamentary secretary to Health Minister Terry Lake, told a one-day meeting in Vancouver on Tuesday.
At Lake’s request, Plecas has been reviewing residential care for seniors in B.C.
This is in the wake of a report from the B.C. seniors advocate Isobel Mackenzie indicating that 232 of B.C.’s 292 residential care homes for seniors did not meet the non-mandatory staffing targets.
Plecas’s review, which is also looking at quality of care and funding, is expected to be completed within a few weeks.
“In general, staffing levels are predictors of quality care,” said Plecas, adding he has heard from many people in the sector that the recommended daily 3.36 direct care hours per person is a minimum that needs to be imposed quickly on all residential care homes for seniors.
“There will be a recommendation about what that [direct care hours] number should be. I’ve seen enough and heard enough to know that a minimum of 3.36 hours certainly makes sense. On the other hand, as we are going through this review … if we are going to establish a minimum, let’s make sure we get it right.”
The 3.36 direct care hours a day per senior would include help with tasks such as using the toilet, feeding and bathing.
Plecas said the system isn’t clear-cut. Each of the five regional health authorities in British Columbia has its own definition of what makes up direct care hours.
“It’s all over the map and we need to fix that,” Plecas said.
“We need to be thinking of what’s not just adequate [in staffing levels], but what’s best,” he said. “I know this issue is near and dear to the heart of everyone I meet who has anything to do with seniors.”
Tuesday’s meeting at Simon Fraser University’s Morris J. Wosk Centre was organized by the Health Ministry and the B.C. Care Providers Association, which represents about 150 for-profit and non-profit agencies that care for a total of about 35,000 B.C. seniors.
