in Chatsworth, Grey Highlands, Southgate, West Grey
March 15, 2022
Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound MPP Bill Walker has announced that local long-term care homes will received a combined $7,238,772 in provincial funding for more staff.
As part of its plan to fix long-term care, the Ontario government will provide up to $673 million more this year to long-term care homes across the province to increase staffing levels, leading to more direct care for residents. This includes $7,238,772 for long-term care homes in Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound. This is part of the province’s commitment to ensure long-term care residents receive—on average—four hours of direct care per day by 2024-25.
These funds will increase care for residents at:
“This funding will allow homes in our community to hire and retain more staff so they can provide more care to residents, every day,” said MPP Bill Walker. “This is part of our government’s plan to hire thousands of new staff over the next four years to ensure those living in long-term care get the high-quality care they need and deserve.”
“We know that more qualified staff means more daily care for residents,” said Paul Calandra, Minister of Long-Term Care. “Hiring more staff is part of our government’s plan to fix long-term care and to improve the quality of care residents receive and the quality of life they experience.”
Seniors entering long-term care today are older and have more complex medical needs than they did just a decade ago. The level of care residents need has increased dramatically, but the amount of care they receive each day has not. In the nine years, between 2009 and 2018, the amount of care each resident received, by all providers, per day increased by only 22 minutes. Our government, over the span of four years, will increase direct hours of care by 1 hour and 21 minutes.
The government is investing $4.9 billion over four years to boost direct resident care to an average of four hours daily by increasing care staff by more than 27,000 people. Hiring thousands of new staff at long-term homes and increasing the amount of care they deliver each year will be made possible by annual funding increases to homes:
Ontario now has over 24,000 new and 19,000 upgraded beds in the development pipeline — which means more than 80 percent of the 30,000 net new beds being delivered are in the planning, construction and opening stages of the development process.
In 2021-22, the province invested $200 million to train up to 16,200 additional personal support workers through publicly-assisted colleges, private career colleges and district school boards.
In 2021-22, the province also invested $35M to add up to 2,000 additional nursing students at publicly-assisted colleges and universities across the province, for the Fall 2021 and Winter 2022 incoming cohorts.
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