Daughter fears mom could be priced out of care home with regulations

With funds running low and options dwindling, a Regina woman is being forced to look at tough decisions regarding her mother’s care.

980 CJME has been reporting on guideline updates for personal care home staffing from the Ministry of Health, and those updates are hitting this woman where it hurts.

The family isn’t being identified because the home hasn’t yet hired a second person, trying to keep costs down as long as possible; identifying the home or her mother could affect her ability to stay in the home.

The woman’s mother has complex care needs and requires close monitoring as well as help in things like getting in and out of her chair.

She had been in a provincially administered, long-term care home, but the woman said she had significant concerns about the care her mother was getting. So she and her sister scraped together what money they could and managed to move their mother to a personal care home in Regina. That was last fall.

Early this year, the sisters were given the news they may have to move her again. As was previously reported, the health ministry clarified its guidelines on staffing, telling personal care homes that if they had residents who require two people to lift them, then two people need to be on staff at all times.

Many smaller homes have one person on staff at night to save on costs and keep residents’ fees lower.

The woman said the manager of the care home her mother is in spoke to her and her sister and told them, if a second person was hired, their mother’s fees would have to go up. She and her sister are already paying just about the top end of what they can afford.

“Just about anything, at this point, is going to make it very difficult and we would potentially have to move her,” said the woman.

Saskatchewan does provide a personal care home benefit to seniors in the province. It’s calculated to be the difference between a senior’s total monthly income and the current threshold of $2,000, where it’s stood for about the past three years.

The woman said her mother qualifies for the benefit, but only to the tune of about $160.

“We’ll take anything of course, but when you’re looking at, for the level of care my mom needs, more like $4,000 a month, that’s not helping a whole lot,” explained the woman.

In an email, a Ministry of Social Services communications person said the ministry continues to review its programs to make sure it’s meeting the needs of residents.

The Ministry of Health, in explaining its addition of a definition to the regulation for reasonable staffing levels, said it’s there to ensure the safety of residents in the event of an emergency.

The woman said she and her sister knew what the staffing situation would be at the home before they chose it for their mother.

She said they were impressed that there would be two people on during the day every day, and even with one person at night, the woman said there’s a lot of monitoring that person does and there’s always a registered nurse on call.

“We were very comfortable with that and were fully aware,” she explained.

She said a 10-to- one ratio of staff to residents in the home is actually very good, according to what she’s seen before.

The Minister of Health has brought up the prospect of a fire in homes and needing to get all the residents out as a reason for the regulation clarifications, but the woman disagrees.

“A fire might be devastating but the probability is fairly low and the sprinklers are functioning and they’re passing all inspections, so, to be honest it’s a risk that my sister and I are certainly willing to accept,” said the woman.

If the fees go up, the woman said they don’t know if they’ll be able to afford another personal care home, so they may have to place their mother back into a provincially run facility. The woman described the home her mother is in now as nice and homey and said her mother was very stressed about the move, but she settled in very well.

“It’s very difficult to think about having to potentially move her against what we … against our better judgment, to be honest,” said the woman.

One of the reasons the woman said they picked their mother’s current care home is that they were told she could stay there until the end of her life.

“She’s failing and her memory isn’t as good, and to move her around right near the end of life when things are stressful and she might be very ill or in pain is not something we want to do, so that is something that is really important to us and that’s what our intent was.”

Not only would a move be stressful, said the woman, but her mother could have to move anywhere in the province. The woman said, if they moved her mother to a long-term care facility, they would have to take the first space available and that wouldn’t necessarily be in Regina.

“Right now I live in Regina, my sister is in Moose Jaw. Between us we visit mom just about every day,” said the woman. “If she was moved to a community where we’d have to drive some distance, I don’t think that’s at all what’s best for my mom, but we’d have no choice.”

The woman is especially frustrated with this prospect because she said it’s a private service she and her sister are paying nearly the entire bill for.

“It’s personal funds that are used to pay for this, almost exclusively, and so it didn’t really deal with that inconsistency with regulation that is sort of imposed on those of us who are making personal decisions and measuring the risks from our own personal perspective,” said the woman.

Lack of answers

Olive Quesnel, vice-president of the association of personal care home operators of Saskatchewan, said she’d had a meeting with members of the community care branch of the Ministry of Health, but that nothing came out of it.

She felt the thrust of the meeting from the ministry was, “we’ll get back to you.”

“Really, they’re giving us lip-service right now,” said Quesnel.

After media attention to the issue in June, Quesnel said the association received a letter back from the provincial government, but it didn’t say much.

She said the association is trying to figure out what else it can do to change the province’s mind on the staffing issue, as well as other issues like trying to increase the personal care home benefit.

“It’s about the seniors; we’re being senior advocates here. We have nothing but the utmost concern about safety for our residents,” said Quesnel.

Quesnel said the association would have loved to work with the ministry on any changes or concerns, but she claims they were completely cut out of the discussion.

She said she feels the association’s relationship with the Ministry of Health has deteriorated. She said a couple of years ago it was very good, but then things started to change, and she said now it’s very strained, stressed and frustrating.