Report: Advocates hope provincial rules change
By Dustin Walker, The Daily News; with Canwest News file
The province has not done enough to implement recommendations designed to better protect seniors living in care facilities, says B.C. ombudsperson Kim Carter.
Carter released the first of two reports on Thursday stemming from an investigation into problems with seniors care, which was triggered by a host of complaints ranging from lack of information available to inadequate responses about poor care.
This first report is about "the most frail and vulnerable" seniors who need 24-hour care and live in care facilities.
The main recommendations include setting out the rights of seniors living in residential facilities and ensuring they are respected, providing better access to information on care facilities and providing support for resident and family councils.
The Daily News reported last month that almost 13% of inspected seniors care facilities licensed under the Community Care and Assisted Living Act on Vancouver Island were classified as "high risk" by health officials.
Of the 10 overall recommendations made in the report, titled The Best of Care: Getting it Right for Seniors in British Columbia, the government has yet to implement six of them, said Carter.
Nanaimo seniors advocates say even the report itself doesn't go far enough to protect seniors and their rights.
The report was released to the Ministry of Health Services and the Ministry of Healthy Living and Sport in March, and since then the province has announced some policies to meet Carter's recommendations.
This includes a Residents Bill of Rights.
However, the Bill of Rights won't lead to real "positive change" unless there is a way to assess the degree to which residents' rights are respected, she said.
"I'm not satisfied that allowing people to complain is enough. I think there has to be monitoring and evaluation," Carter told the Daily News.
The province also isn't fully endorsing a recommendation to establish a position to promote and help develop resident family councils at senior homes by June 30, 2010, as well as the development of regional family councils.
"That's really important because it provides access and accountability to the ministries. Unfortunately, although they say they accept the intent, they're not going to do it," said Carter.
She also thinks the province falls short on creating a province-wide website to share key information about care facilities, on everything from staffing levels to policies. The province said it would only "build on and leverage current structures."
The ombudsperson's report will help but won't address many of the problems with care facilities, say two local advocates for seniors.
Kim Slater, chairman of the family council at Nanaimo Seniors Village, thinks that Bill 29, which allows services to be contracted out at seniors residences, causes many of the problems at seniors homes. Contracting out makes it more difficult for residents and their families to get issues resolved as they are bounced back and forth between different companies and agencies when they complain, he said.
"I think this (report) is a step in the right direction, but I think the good intention of the ombudsman will be sabotaged a bit by bad legislation the government has in place," he said.
Seniors advocate June Ross was disappointed the ombudsperson didn't have any recommendations for ensuring minimum staffing levels and consistent regulations for inspections and enforcement across the province. She hopes those issues are addressed in Carter's second report.
"I'm hoping she will be making regulations to amend the regulations to give them some body, some clout, some strength," said Ross.
Carter said that by giving potential residents the means to scrutinize care homes, it could lead to better conditions overall as people become more informed in their choices.
"You give them this information, I think it would be a very powerful tool for improving performance," she said.
Meanwhile, the report provided ammunition to the New Democrat opposition.
NDP Health Critic Adrian Dix said the B.C. Liberals violated their own commitments made in the last provincial election campaign to provide information on residential care on a single website.
And Dix cited Statistics Canada, which said B.C. provides the least number of hours of staff time per resident of a care facility of all provinces in Canada.
"Surely we have the capacity to have equal care standards, with our economy, to sustain equal care standards with . . . New Brunswick," said Dix.
But Health Services Minister Kevin Falcon said the Statistics Canada information doesn't tell the entire story.
It fails to take into account B.C. hospitals, with their long-term care beds, which care for some of most frail elderly.
And Falcon said the government is still committed to meeting its pledge to provide good information on residential care and good Internet access to it.
But the plan calls for a single, Internet "portal" which can link seniors and their families to all the information on offer with the wide variety of agencies.
The B.C. Ombudsperson is planning on releasing a more comprehensive report on residential care next spring.
