KAILIE OORTWYN, Office of Laurie Scott, MPP
KAWARTHA LAKES: On Friday, October 15th the Ontario government announced they will provide up to $270 million this year to long-term care homes across the province to increase staffing levels, leading to more direct care for residents. This includes $4,199,774 for long-term care homes in Haliburton-Kawartha Lakes-Brock. 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. It was also announced that as part of the government’s plan to fix long-term care, it will bring forward legislation that will enshrine its commitment to four hours of care into law.
“This funding will allow long-term care homes in our community to hire additional staff so they can provide a better quality of care to local residents,” said Laurie Scott, MPP for Haliburton-Kawartha Lakes-Brock. “This is part of our government’s plan to train, hire, and retain thousands of new staff over the next four years.”
“We know that more qualified staff means more daily care for residents,” said Rod Phillips, 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.”
Currently, residents receive an average of two hours and 45 minutes of direct care from nurses and personal support workers. This funding will increase the daily average to 3 hours, per resident per day by the end of this fiscal year. This funding also includes $42.8M to homes to increase care by allied health care professionals (such as physiotherapists and social workers) by 10 percent this year.
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:
$270 million in 2021-22 $673 million in 2022-23 $1.25 billion in 2023-24 $1.82 billion in 2024-25