Auditor General, Denise Hanrahan, has delivered a report to government about what she calls “serious issues” that affect our most vulnerable residents, those in long term care. The audit included 22 recommendations and covered 11 criteria, that included site visits and staff interviews. She says there was incomplete or inconsistent documentation and operational standards haven’t been updated for 20 years
Hanrahan says they found issues with wait times, admissions and placements, as well as initial assessments which are critical for residents’ health and safety. She says they looked at specifics like staffing, food and patient safety. Screening for indiv to be sure the people working in Long Term Care facilities actually have the skills and are safe to be working with this vulnerable population, gaps in training, issues with food practices that in some cases are not up to standard and no process to deal with complaints.
Hanrahan says there is a lack of accountability within the system because of weaknesses in governance oversight and monitoring which is a big risk for those residents. She says there were over 21,700 occurrences during the two years of the audit and her office was not allowed to look at any of them in depth.
Hanrahan says the Department felt that giving her office that information would breach the Patient Safety Act. She doesn’t agree with that but rather than stopping an audit with a lot of findings, one of the recommendations was to have independent oversight of those occurrences.
There are 43 long term care facilities in the province and Hanrahan highlighted issues found in the Western Zone, where there are 73 LTC beds. She says there was no critical observation done related to food inspection and some food storage areas were not clean or well organized.
There are 3,162 people living in LTC facilities at a cost of about $151K per bed.
