To the Editor:
On the CEO’s tour every single health region identifies short-staffing and quality of care issues in seniors care homes, despite two years of reports, evidence and devastating family stories that should have caused the government to take action.
And, the lazy and sanitized report is also riddled with, literally, sections cut-and-pasted from both other pages of the same report or even pages from last year’s report, often both.
After pressing from Health critic Danielle Chartier, the newest report stemming from health region CEO tours of long-term care facilities was released last Wednesday.
“This report points directly to the Sask. Party government’s failure to act on the seniors care crisis,” said Chartier. “Short staffing is epidemic, and it’s an underlying cause of the seniors care crisis. This government needs to get its head out of the sand, stop denying the problem, stop relying on administration and consultants to fix the mess and start putting enough front-line staff on every shift.”
Containing even the same typos, virtually every facility report in the Saskatoon Health Region, for example, says each particular facility’s resident/family council meeting told the CEO “Residents want a bath more than once/week. Residents notice staff shortages and often have to wait up to 30 minutes after they ring their call bell. Continent residents have soiled themselves because of it,” and, ironically, “Residents want to spend more time with staff – personalize the care.” Where did those phrases come from? They are word-for-word reproductions of the 2013 report.
“Obviously, families who attended the Resident Family Council meeting throughout the region weren’t reading from a script,” said Chartier. “So, we have to conclude that this CEO tour wasn’t taken seriously, and the residents and their families were not actually listened to.”
“This government is phoning it in with a cut-and-paste from year-and-a-half old reports. We’re talking about a wide-spread seniors care problem that has caused neglect, loss of dignity and even the death of seniors. This lazy, dismissive, short-cut is disgusting.”
The 2013 report features quotes from residents the CEOs spoke to. There were none of those in this year’s report. Common issues, according to the CEOs, included lack of staff leading to a lack of baths, long waits for call bells to be answered and poor food quality.
NDP caucus
