New P.E.I. budget lacks plan to fix long-term care, says Opposition

P.E.I.'s Official Opposition says the government lacks a plan to improve working conditions and quality of care for seniors living in long-term care in the province.

On Friday, Green MLA Michele Beaton referred to a video released by the Union of Public Sector Employees, which represents LPNs, resident care workers and other staff in both public and private long-term care facilities.

In the video, workers — whose voices have been altered and identities concealed for fear of reprisals from employers — describe working conditions in facilities that were already struggling with staffing shortages even before many were struck with outbreaks of COVID-19.

"There's been times I've left work in tears because we're so short-staffed, we have so much more work put on us," says one female voice in the video.

"We're winging it," says another. "We've all gotten sick, most of us. It's very draining and physical. We're failing [residents], completely."

No increase in funding

In its new operating budget tabled Thursday, the Dennis King government provided $117 million in funding for the operation of both publicly and privately operated long-term care homes. That's a million dollars less than the amount the government is projecting it will spend on long-term care in the current budget year.

"You tabled a budget yesterday, so where's your strategic plan?" Beaton asked Health Minister Ernie Hudson during question period.

"I'm angry," Beaton said, after Hudson was unable to tell her how many more staff will be hired, or how his government's new budget will address staffing issues in long-term care.

"And you should be angry," she told the minister.

Hudson said he was prepared to work with the Opposition and unions "to address some of the issues that we have here, because it does concern me."

Revamped inspections

Two things the new budget will provide: $100,000 in funding to "modernize the inspection process" for long-term care facilities. The budget also promised a new review of long-term care.

Another review of long-term care by the King government, promised by former health minister James Aylward, has not yet been made public, a government spokesperson confirmed Friday.

Provincial health officials told MLAs at a committee meeting on Feb. 11 that some long-term care facilities have been unable to maintain government-mandated staffing levels.

As a result, they said standards of care had been reduced, but that homes were still providing a "basic standard" of care.

A dozen outbreaks of COVID-19 have been declared in Island long-term and community care facilities since mid-December, infecting residents and staff.

Two long-term care facilities have been placed on provisional licenses, after inspectors flagged concerns around staffing, personnel files and training, and infection prevention measures.

Short-staffed facilities get same funding

The Greens have asked whether private long-term care homes are profiting by running short-staffed.

They cited a report from the auditor general in New Brunswick from 2020, which found Medavie Health Services — the private parent corporation of the companies that provide ambulance service in both New Brunswick and P.E.I. — pocketed almost $9 million in surpluses in 2019 from vacant positions for paramedics in New Brunswick that weren't filled.

Beaton said she's worried the same thing is happening within long-term care in P.E.I.

"Private nursing homes are responsible for staffing their homes," she said.

"Are there any penalties for private companies that do not provide adequate care for our elders, or are they getting rich on the back of our seniors and our nurses?"

Hudson did not dispute, either in question period or during interviews with reporters afterwards, that private long-term care facilities receive the same per diems from government to pay for client care, regardless of staffing levels.

The Greens have been calling for increases in mandated staffing levels for long-term care homes, higher wages for workers, and now say government funding for private homes should be tied to meeting staffing requirements and other performance measures.

But Hudson said government already has set contractual conditions on funding for private operators, and said the companies are operating with the best interests of residents in mind.

"Any private business, at the end of the day, has a goal and that is to be profitable," he told reporters.

"But at the same time, the ones that are running these facilities … they're good, they're caring people. They want the best for the residents."