By Cecilia Nasmith
Municipal long-term-care homes – like Northumberland County's Golden Plough Lodge – were a concern of the Eastern Ontario Warden's Caucus even before COVID-19.
“Once COVID hit, this placed an even bigger spotlight on the challenges,” Chief Administrative Officer Jennifer Moore said at this week's Community Health standing committee meeting.
The Eastern Ontario region has 15 long-term-care homes (of which the Golden Plough Lodge is the second-oldest) with some 2,386 beds. As many of these facilities (like the Plough) are redeveloping and expanding capacity, this number will grow.
Moore presented highlights from the report the EOWC commissioned from a consultant which surveyed a variety of concerns and made a number of recommendations – the top three of which Moore shared with the committee.
Four hours of care – the standard to which the province aspires as a daily minimum per resident – is not being achieved just now, Moore said, citing a direct-care gap of just over one hour. Closing that gap will require not only funding, but the training and recruitment of enough staff to make that possible.
In the case of the Plough, she noted, they are seeing residents who individually need significantly more care than in the past.
Changing the funding formula would simplify so much. The current complex formula is labour-intensive and very slow to respond when changes are needed – with lag times of up to two years in some cases. The alternative the EOWC would like to see is a simple flat per-bed rate.
“Keep it simple, rather than put a lot of resources into a process that takes forever before it flows through to us,” Moore urged.
Changes to capital funding should be considered, like making no-interest loans available. The Plough is a perfect example of how this might have made a difference, with borrowing necessary to finance the badly needed rebuild. No matter how low the interest, Moore said, it amounts to a lot on a loan of this magnitude.
There are also recommendations having to do with resource sharing, and these opportunities are important. But for Moore, the top three priorities she cited should head the list.
The entire study has been made available to key players like Minster of Long-Term Care Merrilee Fullerton and even a multi-minister delegation at the Rural Ontario Municipalities Association conference. It is also being shared with such key stakeholders as Association of Municipalities of Ontario, Federation of Committees of Ontario and Eastern Ontario Mayors Caucus.
The motion passed by the committee is to have staff prepare a report outlining steps the county might take to implement key recommendations of the report and bring it back to a future committee meeting.
