‘Help Wanted’: Health minister says Sask. has taken ‘great strides’ on staffing in long-term care

Saskatchewan’s health minister thinks there’s still work to do in long-term care, but he says the province has come a long way.

Jim Reiter didn’t specifically say whether he thinks there’s a staffing problem in long-term care in the province.

“We’re always open to looking, especially at specific situations,” said Reiter.

READ MORE: Family says short-staffing in long-term care leaves residents waiting

Reiter points out the Saskatchewan Party government over the past 13 years has put big investments into new infrastructure in long-term care and has hired 700 frontline long-term care staff.

“That doesn’t mean we can’t do better, so obviously we’re happy to continue looking at it, but significant strides have been made,” Reiter said.

When comments about staffing problems from the 2019 CEO tour report were pointed out to Reiter after Question Period last week, he pointed in turn to the surveys taken of residents and families in long-term care.

“Eighty-three or 85 per cent, I think, were happy with the quality of care that their loved ones were getting; that means we want to work hard on the other 15 per cent. And so there’s much more work to do but we think we’ve taken great strides in the right direction,” repeated Reiter.

READ MORE: Care worker says rising levels of care putting strain on workers

When criticisms come up in those CEO tour reports, Reiter said it’s incumbent on the Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) officials to work toward improvements, and he thinks they’ve been doing that.

He said if there’s something found in the reports that’s more systemic, then it would be brought to the government. But he didn’t answer whether short-staffing would be considered systemic as the problem is spread across many homes.

Reiter said while the “buck stops” with the government, the initial work needs to start with the SHA. He said he relies on the SHA and ministry officials to know where they’re at as far as staffing.

READ MORE: Advocate points to pandemic putting care problems in spotlight

The authority declined to provide anyone to comment on long-term care staffing, saying it’s too busy with the COVID-19 pandemic.

The NDP points to a campaign promise from the Sask. Party in 2016 which said it would take $7.5 million in health savings and put it into long-term care staffing.

That whole investment didn’t end up happening, and Reiter blames the “difficult budgets” the province has dealt with in the last few years.

READ MORE: NDP says staffing has been a problem for years with no fix coming from government

The NDP is also calling for minimum care standards. Reiter argues the government does have minimum care standards, saying the NDP is just getting into semantics.

In 2011, the government replaced its minimum care standards with a nearly 200-page document called “Program Guidelines for Special Care Homes.”

The NDP argues that the document doesn’t have set amounts of care time for residents and that it doesn’t have teeth.

In the last couple of weeks, whenever criticisms have come up about staffing in long-term care, the government looks back to what the situation was when the NDP was in power 13 years ago.

“It’s easy to say you’re understaffed but if that alone is the case, well, how badly were we understaffed a decade ago?” Reiter said.

The NDP and some others have said seniors aren’t a priority for this government. Reiter disagrees, saying seniors, and their care, are a priority.