Staff contract cancelled at seniors facility

Residents at Mountain Lake Seniors Community will have an almost complete change in the staff that help them. Photo by Chris Shepherd.

Mountain Lake Seniors Community is what’s called a P3 facility (public, private partnership) and has 92 long-term care beds and 40 assisted living suites, which can have more than two occupants. The facility is funded by Interior Health (the ‘public’) and run by Park Place (the ‘private’).

Ian West, vice president operations for Park Place, says his company had no choice but to cancel their contract with AdvoCare to provide staff for the facility after Interior Health’s (IH) new funding came out.

Old system worked well, says West

Previously, says West, IH funding was based on outcomes, primarily quality of life and care. Under this system there were clear measures for providers like Park Place to follow: falls, infections and so on.

As long as those outcomes met the health authority’s standards, IH didn’t tell Park Place how to spend the money. That meant Park Place could determine its own staffing requirements and change them according to the needs of residents, says West.

Following the old system, the one that used outcomes, the staff at Mountain Lake Seniors Community did very well, says West.

That doesn’t amount to much when the funding doesn’t cover the contract, says West.

“[Under the new system,] the health authority, rather than the operators, determines how many hours of nursing care, therapeutic care and ancillary nursing care are provided per day per resident,” says West.

“But what they’ve required in terms of additional hours is not covered by the funding they’re providing.”

West could not say how many employees would be affected by the cancelled contract because his company does not actually staff the facility. A representative from AdvoCare could not be reached for comment on this story.

Changes needed to ensure service meets standards, says IH

Karen Bloemink, regional director for resident services for IH, says the changes came about through a province-wide agreement on staffing requirements.

The province’s five health authorities collaborated on what they agreed are the staffing practices they’d like in their facilities, says Bloemink.

Bloemink says the changes are meant to be clearer about the level of care IH expects at all of its residential care sites. The health authority wants to be sure every resident is receiving the same number of hours of nursing support and other services.

“The reason that we’ve been very specific is so that we know that all of our residents, no matter what facility they are in, are receiving service that is to a certain standard,”Bloemink says.

The new arrangement does allow for “some flexibility” in the targeted hours to set up a staffing arrangement that works best for the facility operators, says Bloemink.

Funding increase won’t cover increased hours

Bloemink says the changes are meant to set standards across the health authority’s region.

“We have to keep in mind that bigger picture and how we’re applying our dollars to these contracts and that we’re doing it in an equitable fashion.”

The health authority has increased its funding to Park Place to run Mountain Lake Seniors Community by 2.2 per cent.

That increase will cover inflation and part of the increased hours IH has asked from Park Place, says West, but only part.

“There’s a gap. We’ve looked at that gap, we’ve had conversations with Interior Health . . . to try and close that gap but there’s still a gap that can’t be afforded with the contract we have with AdvoCare.”

Park Place notified AdvoCare that the contract will go out to tender on Wednesday, Dec. 1.

West says AdvoCare has been given the chance to see how they can meet the new requirements set out by Interior Health, but he isn’t optimistic.

Seniors get attached to caregivers

West says there will be an unfortunate impact on the residents at Mountain Lake Seniors Community. Currently, the facility’s care programs are formed through a discussion with the seniors, which West says allows for a well-tailored arrangement that meets residents’ specific needs.

Also, the staff know the residents who can get attached to the caregivers, says West.

“It takes awhile for staff to build up a rapport with residents and get to know the residents well enough to be able to provide that customized care,” West says.

Bloemink doesn’t deny having consistency in the actual people giving the care is important, but she returns to message that IH wants to see similar staffing levels across the health authority.

Not the first time community rattled

Residents were moved in 2005 after Interior Health replaced the publicly run Mount St. Francis Hospital with the privately run Mountain Lake Seniors Community. Photo by Chris Shepherd

This isn’t the first time residents at Mountain Lake Seniors Community have been through major changes.

In 2005, Interior Health closed Mount St. Francis Hospital, a facility geared towards senior care. The health authority ran the facility itself, but got out of the business when it closed the hospital and entered into a contract with Park Place to run the newly built Mountain Lake Seniors Community.

None of the 150 workers at Mount St. Francis Hospital were guaranteed jobs at the new facility.

Looking to the future, West says there’s another challenge facing his organization.

“On paper, the residents should benefit because they will get more hours of care,” says West. “In the interim, through the transition . . . how to we get there and protect the quality of care and relationships the residents have developed and recognize that staff have done nothing wrong but provide really good care?”