“We need people desperately”: Long-term care resident; advocate call for urgent solution to staffing shortages

Vicky Levack relies on a wheelchair to get around and has lived in long-term care for the past decade. She recently learned four residents at her facility, Aborstone Enhanced Care, have tested positive for COVID-19.

It means she is now largely confined to her room.

“Yesterday we were not allowed to leave the room at all,” she says, “today we are allowed to go out for meals, and that’s it.”

Arborstone is operated by Shannex Incorporated. The company’s senior communications manager, Gillian Costello, confirmed the positive cases at the facility in an email.

“Residents are isolating in their suites with the full service and support of our caring and dedicated team members,” writes Costello. “We work closely with, and follow all direction from, Public Health for all actions related to cases of Covid-19 including testing, isolation and wearing additional personal protective equipment where required to help prevent the spread of the virus and keep everyone healthy and safe.”

Levack says staffing shortages during the Omicron wave have made the situation at the facility challenging. On several occasions, she says, there have been one continuing care assistant and one RN or LPN on a night shift on her unit, caring for 19 residents overnight.

She’s written her MLA, asking for government to intervene to get more hands on deck.

“We need bodies, we need people to do the physical work,” she says.

Thursday, the minister in charge of long-term care told reporters there are fewer than 250 covid cases among staff and residents of nursing homes in Nova Scotia.

Provincial news releases so far this month indicate that includes at least 29 residents.

Barbara Adams says initiatives are underway to get more workers.

“One of the newer ones is to give additional human resources staffing to the nursing homes, to help them find staff for their facilities right now," says Adams.

But one advocate for long-term care residents says that’s not enough.

“We need people, and we need people desperately in long term care,” says Gary MacLeod of the group Advocates for the Care of the Elderly (ACE).

MacLeod says the pandemic continues to highlight long-existing shortfalls in long-term care.

He says the province and facilities should bring in staff from other sectors, such as the hospitality sector, to do some of duties required in facilities that don’t require specialized medical training.

MacLeod also would like to see more designated caregivers (DCGs), which are often family members of residents, allowed to help care for their loved ones.

Right now, a number of facilities are either limiting the number of DCGs permitted inside a facility, restricting the length of time they can spend, or barring them altogether.

“They should be allowing more than two designated caregivers to come into the facilities,” says MacLeod, “there's no reason why they cannot help out to allow the more trained staff to do more personal care.”

MacLeod says DCGs are fully vaccinated and can also be tested for COVID-19 as a precaution.

The group representing the province's nursing homes acknowledges staffing challenges are putting pressure on facilities.

Michele Lowe of the Nursing Homes of Nova Scotia Association says facilities are fortunate to have high vaccination rates and says operators are telling her residents who have tested positive are experiencing relatively mild symptoms.

“We're at the height of it right now and it's really demonstrating how much as a province we need to continue to invest in long term care,” says Lowe.

Levack says public health came to test her and other residents for COVID-19 on Friday.

She has her booster - but is still “terrified,” she says, especially for Arborstone’s more vulnerable residents.