Missed baths, lonely meals: Care home funding cuts impacting B.C. seniors

The end of a B.C. funding program for overtime at some care homes is impacting how much help staff can provide residents with basic needs.

In the five days since they lost a provincial funding initiative, B.C. care home operators are already having to make tough decisions about core services with the staff available.

Pandemic-era funding for overtime wages ended on Oct. 31, and now not-for-profit and private organizations that operate seniors’ care facilities with public funds are in a tight spot.

A dire shortage of care aides and nurses means they can’t simply hire more people at standard wages.

At Haro Park, in Vancouver’s West End, some seniors missed their scheduled shower earlier this week, and on Wednesday morning all 154 of them ate breakfast alone in their rooms because there weren’t enough nurses to help them dress, arrange incontinence products and medication, and prepare for the day.

“Instead of coming down and socializing with other residents, interacting with staff, being in a different environment, they end up being isolated in their rooms,” said Rob Gillis, the facility’s CEO.

Care home operators who spoke to CTV News ahead of the funding expiry last month had predicted staffing dilemmas as they already have tight budgets and that require them to get creative to meet care standards.

A communications staffer for the Ministry of Health said they were working on a written response to a CTV News inquiry about the issue but did not send one.

The minister has previously said the top-up funding couldn’t last forever and they’re directing government resources to training more staff.

Families concerned

The Office of the Seniors’ Advocate has been inundated with correspondence from family members concerned about the level of attention their loved ones will receive in government-funded facilities.

“We’ve seen an erosion of funding for long-term care and assisted living since the pandemic when lots was invested, when this was on the front pages of the papers and on the 6 o’clock news,” said Dan Levitt.

“We have seen things like the overtime and the agency staffing costs that operators have not been able to solve because they are swimming in the same pool looking for staffing as the hospitals are looking for.”

He also pointed out that without enough funding to establish more long-term and assisted living facilities, seniors who can’t live independently are spending weeks or even months in hospitals as they await a bed, which causes delays in the hospital system for all patients and leads to further costs to government.

“So, we’re also going to see ambulances being required to take people to hospitals and we’re going to see the caregivers stressed out, as well as seniors who are at home and should be getting long-term care not getting it because we haven’t built enough and we haven’t invested enough in seniors care,” he said.

Families activating a response

It should come as no surprise that with a massive deficit and health care already taking the lion’s share of tax dollars, policymakers would prioritize hospital funding to avoid hallway medicine. But experts have repeatedly pointed out that upstream, early intervention has the best results for patients with the best outcomes.

Care homes don’t have the same kind of visibility and political optics, prompting family members to begin organizing on how to get more attention—and government support.

“Seniors, they’re kind of hidden away here and they don’t have the same level of advocacy,” said Valerie Francis, chair of the Haro Park Family Council.

She’s written a letter to Premier David Eby on behalf of her 103-year-old mother and thousands of other elders facing uncertain futures.

“Ninety years ago, in 1935, my mother left school to begin working to support her family because the government assistance provided was not enough to sustain their basic needs,” wrote Francis.

“Now, at 103 she does not have that option. So, she needs your help to work for her to ensure that she can continue to receive the level of care that she deserves.”