A new funding model from Interior Health that tells operators of Nelson’s seniors care facility how they must spend the money they’re getting means there’ll be almost a complete changeover in staffing at Mountain Lake Seniors Community.
Park Place, the owner of Mountain Lake Seniors Community (map) in Nelson, had to cancel its contract with AdvoCare, the company that staffs the seniors’ facilit, says a Park Place executive.
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?”
What do you think about the changes at Mountain Lake Seniors Community?
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The IHA is much too irresponsible to be trusted with our health care. This is simply a PR organization that just spins everything to sound good.
What this news item really shows, is the continual downgrading of all aspects of our health care by the IHA. This is part of their aggressive plan to downgrade the level of health care workers everywhere. In this instance they are replacing LPNs with Care aids. Meanwhile in our emergency rooms including Nelson’s, they are in the process of replacing RNs with LPNs. It is obvious that the only place this organization thinks quality people are important is in administration. I have news for them, the most important assett in our health care system are the health care providers, not the scads of administrators scurrying off to more meetings. We need more of the former and less of the latter.
The IHA is a top heavy, extremely wasteful and poorly run organization. They have cut entire hospitals, beds, and health care workers, but have not managed to save the taxpayer one cent. Why? Because they replaced these costs with high paid adminstrators to enact their spin.
Wake up BC and follow Alberta’s lead. Get rid of these useless Health Authorities which just add two more levels of bureaucrats to our health care system.
Good post. I too agree that IH is very top heavy. When I was placing my dad into their care I visited their office building in Nelson. There is a great number of offices and they are all full. Yet not one of these workers cleans a soiled patient, or feeds a patient, or cleans a room or dresses a patient, etc… All they do is push paper. (this they freely admit to). It is also interesting that this year the IH increased the fees for the patients by 12%-15% but only increased their financial contribution for patients care by a paltry 2.2%. Private, Public, Partnership means Profit before patient care.
Its a sad article. People who have contibuted to society in so many ways, now at the end of their lives aren’t treated well. Mountain Station employees with strong relationships to residents were not given new jobs and in fact the wage drop was considerable from Mt. St. Francis to the new facility. IHA people’s paycheques, Park Place paycheques, Avocare paycheques, and then staff paycheques – - guess who’s are the smallest and who are doing the important work that the residents require? A very sad situation. I hope this contract cancellation highlights the idea that taking care of our amazing seniors in our communities must be done in a fair, compassionalte, realistic and creative way – we can and must do it.
Not mentioned either was the millions of dollars taken from the Mount and put into general revenue when the IHA took over from the Sisters.
This money was donated by citizens to the sister’s charity and grabbed by the IHA.
P3s and companies like Advocare scare me, especially when it comes to health care and seniors care. Many years ago, I worked for a long term care facility in Victoria that was managed by a company called Extendicare. Staff decided to unionize and in the process found out that Extendicare was a subsidiary of Crownex which, at that time was one of the largest 5 corporations in the world. This was about 20 years ago. Funny when I google Advocare and Extendicare a number of links come up, but there’s nothing on Crownex. I’d like to know what corporation Advocare is a subsidiary of.
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Pay the care-givers fairly and moniter them to ensure that they are motivated to provide good care. Getting the right people in thses jobs is key. When you find good care-givers pay them well. Good staff will be motivated to do a good job, by the smiles on the faces of their patients and the patient’s families.
Why is this so complicated?
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