Long Term Care Facilities

OPSEU withdraws from nursing home committee

March 20 2009

OPSEU has withdrawn from a provincial implementation committee intended to develop guidelines for staffing in long term care homes.

The committee emerged from Shirlee Sharkey’s controversial appointment to propose a comprehensive health human resources framework for long term care facilities. The appointment followed a series of media stories and reports on poor conditions in Ontario’s publicly funded nursing homes.

The McGuinty government promised to introduce a staffing standard for the homes in the 2007 election, and it was widely expected Sharkey would help define what that standard would be. As the former head of the RNAO, Sharkey had once been an advocate for nursing ratios in the health care system.

Instead she dismissed the idea of a regulated staffing standard, watering down any requirements to a series of unclear initiatives that relied more on unenforceable guidelines rather than regulation.

One of those initiatives was to require each nursing home to form a Staffing Plan Committee that would make recommendations around utilization of existing human resources. That committee would include residents, their families, employees, board members and managers, but the recommendations would be non-binding.

“Without any commitment of resources, this committee will have little real impact on quality care for residents in our nursing homes,” says Patty Rout, OPSEU First Vice-President/Treasurer. “Using Sharkey, the McGuinty government is doing little more than providing window-dressing to cover up another broken promise.”

OPSEU is concerned that with a growing percentage of Ontario nursing home beds being provided by for-profit corporations, that the absence of a staffing standard has already compromised quality care in the drive to maximize profits.

Extendicare, one of the major players in Ontario’s nursing home sector, has been fined for neglect of care in the US. A Florida jury awarded $20 million in damages against Extendicare in 2000 after a nursing home resident was found to be malnourished, dehydrated and had developed severe pressure sores. Testimony revealed the center operated short staffed and employees didn’t have enough time to provide the everyday tasks the resident needed.

OPSEU, CAW and CUPE have walked away from the committee, determined to return to the campaign to demand 3.5 hours of direct care per resident per day based on average acuity.