Summary of Staffing Survey: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Q3Re–G1QnF1T-CH5TFT9_RsIKdHGAv8/view?usp=sharing
April 11, 2022. Toronto – With an Ontario election anticipated for early June, the Family Councils Action Coalition (FCAC) is calling on Ontario’s political parties to formally table their plans to solve the chronic staffing crisis in Ontario’s beleaguered long-term care homes.
“While COVID certainly blew the lid off the roof, understaffing and poor resident-to-staff ratios is not new”, says Denise Schon, Chair of Family Council at Lakeside Long-term Care in Toronto and a lead organizer with FCAC. “As our new survey of families, caregivers and residents shows, Personal Service Workers routinely struggle to meet the care needs of ten or more high-needs residents at a time and core things start to slip – meals are rushed, teeth aren’t brushed, call bells aren’t responded to; agency staff don’t know the residents or their care plans which puts more pressure on the regular staff. There aren’t enough activities and activities tend to be “one size fits all”; physio and mental health supports are very limited. Far too many residents are left sitting in the TV rooms of LTCs across this province every single day. It doesn’t need to be like this.”
In the early part of the pandemic, Canada had the worst COVID-19 death rate in long -term care amongst all OECD nations with the highest numbers reported in Ontario. To date there have been 4,420 COVID related deaths in Ontario LTCs and many workers have fled a sector notorious for low wages and poor labour conditions.
“We are failing our most vulnerable citizens,” says Schon, “and it’s no secret. The media has been reporting on the poor conditions in LTC for decades. In dozens of reports and commissions dating back to the early 2000s, staffing has been consistently underlined as the core issue that needs to shift for conditions in Ontario’s long-term care to improve. Fortunately, the smart policy work has been laid out by the authors of those reports and participants in those commissions – what has always been missing is the political commitment. Will the party leaders finally step up?”
FCAC is an informal and growing coalition of Chairs and representatives from Family Councils from across the province who want their voices to be heard in the upcoming election. Family Councils are independent bodies that represent the voices of friends and family members of residents at individual long-term care homes. There are 627 long-term care homes across Ontario, over 78,000 residents and hundreds of thousands of family members and friends who want to see the system improve for current and future residents.
Between March 13 – 28, 2022, the ad hoc group conducted a survey of family members, caregivers and residents of LTCs in Ontario. 472 respondents from 94 different homes (15% of all homes in Ontario) represented by 31 of Ontario’s 34 public health units completed the survey which captures family, caregiver, and resident perceptions of quality of care and quality of life as it relates to staffing levels.