County works to address long-term-care staffing shortage

Northumberland County

Hoping to cut the literally millions of dollars spent for temporary staffers at its long-term-care facility, the Golden Plough Lodge, Northumberland County is revving up staff-recruitment efforts

With almost $2-million spent on temporary long-term-care staffers over the past two years, more dependable strategies for staffing the Golden Plough Lodge were discussed at Wednesday's meeting of Northumberland County council.

Today's staffing challenges are bad enough, Councillor John Logel pointed out – what about when the new facility opens and is 10% larger than the current one.
There will be 180 beds as opposed to the 151 currently occupied, Director of Health and Human Services Glenn Dees agreed, and there are also increased requirement in the number of hours of care each occupant must receive daily.

“We do have several strategies for recruitment,” he said.

These include launching a marketing video to attract students to the area, working with post-secondary institutions within the area to showcase opportunities for new PSWs, and pursuing a strategy to recruit internationally educated nurses to come to Northumberland to work as PSWs while they pursue avenues for Canadian certification as a nurse.

They are working with the Shapiro Foundation on this last strategy, Dees said.
“We are looking to provide our first job offer to an internationally educated nurse to come to Northumberland to this program.”

Given impending changes to the American health-care system with a new president, Deputy Warden Olena Hankivsky added, is there any thought of recruiting from that group?

“That is another avenue we will certainly look at as well,” Dees agreed.