The Ontario Long Term Care Association (OLTCA) and its member homes, including Fairvern Nursing Home and Muskoka Landing Long Term Care Centre, recently launched a campaign asking the provincial government to provide $513 million in additional operational funding in the 2008/09 budget to improve resident care.

On Friday afternoon, Parry Sound-Muskoka MPP Norm Miller paid a special visit to Fairvern to collect 211 cards bearing signatures of individuals supporting the campaign for more funding.

“I’m certainly doing everything I can and I’ve spoke on many occasions about long-term care help,” stated Miller, noting that he would deliver the letters to the Minister of Health at Queen’s Park on March 17. “I’ve also reminded the government of its past commitments including in the 2003 election, where there were promises to increase funding by $6,000 per resident, which hasn’t happened.”

Miller went on to say that during the past election, upon visiting various long-term care homes, the issue of incontinence supplies was brought up at a public meeting he attended.

“A gentleman made a point of telling me his diaper wasn’t being changed at night. I mean, this is about human dignity. It was obvious the man was embarrassed, but the bottom line is that this shouldn’t be happening in the province.”

Miller also indicated that the government would have to establish a plan to reinvest in older long-term care homes to “bring them up to current standards.”

According to the OLTCA website, the $513 million in funding would provide an extra 24 minutes of daily care, for example, to help residents get to meals and go to the washroom, by adding more personal support workers as well as increasing the number of daily incontinence changes from 3.5 to approximately five for those who need it. The funding would also increase programs and activities during evenings and weekends by adding an activity aide per home seven days a week, improve dietary assessment by increasing consultation times with clinical dieticians, improve meal services by adding food service workers and improve clinical assessments by adding more registered nursing staff and put a stop to the four-year erosion in housekeeping, maintenance, and laundry, among other services.

Brenda Greer, director of resident care at Fairvern Nursing Home, indicated that while the news of the possibility for more funding to long-term care facilities is welcomed, what departments it would specifically benefit depends on how the money is allocated.

“Quite often when they provide you with additional or new funding, it’s designated to tell long-term care homes how it will be spent,” stated Greer. “We will have to see the parameters the ministry provides us with before we can identify our needs. Any additional funding is always welcome and much needed.”

Noting that it would be “very exciting news” if the funding was realized, Greer went on to say that advocacy campaigns in previous years have been successful, but not to this degree.

“They’re asking for quite a large increase,” she said. “In previous years it’s been smaller amounts. Nursing homes are funded for different envelopments like raw foods, nursing and personal care, and in the fall, we had an increase to the raw food envelopment, which provided us with more funding to pay for the residents’ food. It was quite minimal before, so that was a welcomed increase.”

According to Pamm Griffin, Muskoka Landing Long Term Care Centre’s activation co-ordinator, the facility would be mailing close to 200 letters signed by those who are supporting the possible funding increase.

Griffin stated that less than two weeks ago, resident John Fuller, who is also the vice-president of the residents’ council, made it his mission to get as many signatures as possible.

“Every day he’d bring a new pile of signed cards down to give to the resident family services co-ordinator,” Griffin said, adding that a poster display in the front lobby and front office as well as a station for people to sign in support of the funding also helped raise awareness on the issue. “It would benefit every department, whether it be nursing, environmental services or the life enrichment program. It would help improve the quality of life for residents drastically because they would have more personal care and staff as well as more programs offered.”