BY NORM TOLLINSKY
A training program at Lakeland Long Term Care in Parry Sound may serve as a model for communities across the north that are struggling with a critical shortage of personal support workers (PSWs).
The 110-bed nursing home was desperate, said Lakeland Long Term Care administrator Len Fabiano.
“We were wearing our people out with double shifts and overtime. We had to do something. We were at the point where we’d have to close beds if we didn’t get the staff.”
A full-time PSW program offered by Canadore College wasn’t churning out enough graduates to meet the need in the community. In 2005, the Ministry of Colleges and Universities lengthened the training program for PSWs to nine months and mandated tougher admission requirements, including a high school diploma with credits in English, Chemistry and Math. On top of that, students had to give up an income for the duration of the program, pay $3,500 for tuition plus another $500 for books, said Fabiano.
Desperate to do something to relieve the shortage of PSWs, Lakeland Long Term Care worked with Sault College to craft an in-house training program delivered by local instructors and supplemented by distance learning through Contact North, a distance education and training network with 112 access centres across Ontario.
Lakeland covered the cost of tuition and books for nine students and paid them a nominal salary for an initial three-month period of classroom training. “We were spending more in overtime, sick time and worker’s compensation,” said Fabiano.
With three months of classroom training under their belts, the students had sufficient clinical experience to perform their duties as personal support workers, and continued with the rest of the program through distance learning.
“We opened the program to our house keepingand dietary staff as well as to family members of staff,” said Fabiano. “The rationale was that we were giving opportunities to our own people, most of whom could not otherwise afford to take the program.”
Classroom instruction commenced in January 2010 and, in April, seven PSWs received their diplomas.
Lakeland doesn’t intend to repeat the program. “It was to give us a boost and to take the pressure off,” said Fabiano. “It wasn’t meant to compete with or replace the full-time program (offered by Canadore).”
There are several factors that have contributed to the shortage of PSWs in Ontario, not least of which are an aging population and the creation of 20,000 new nursing home beds in the early 2000s.
The problem is exacerbated in Parry Sound by the community’s location. The next nearest town of any significant size is an hour or more away, making it difficult to draw workers from outside the community. Competition from other institutions also affected recruitment.
“We opened in 2005, so we were the new kid on the block,” said Fabiano. “There’s a municipal home for the aged that’s been here forever, plus the hospital. When we opened, no one looked at whether there would be enough staff. When I came in September 2006, we had 59 per cent of our registered staff positions vacant for three years. We were using Toronto agency nurses at an exorbitant cost.”
The co-located West Parry Sound Health Centre, which owns Lakeland and was also struggling to recruit nurses, added to the problem by hiring PSWs. The North East LHIN’s Aging at Home initiative and the opening of a group home by Community Living Parry Sound placed further pressure on the available labour pool.
Standard of care
“There was a significant cost to the program, but when you look at what it meant for the morale of the organization and our ability to maintain a high standard of care, it was worth it,” said Fabiano.
Personal support workers play a critical role in influencing the quality of care in long term care facilities, explained Julie Flagler, Lakeland’s director of professional practice. “They shower and bathe the residents, assist with transferring and mobility, help with their meals, dress them, take them to the washroom and sit and talk to them.”
The training program was a classic win-win solution. It eased the pressure on overworked staff, sustained a high level of quality care for residents and provided advancement opportunities for grateful housekeeping and dietary staff who wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford the tuition and go without an income for nine months.
www.lakelandltc.com
