The OLTCA and its members have requested additional funding through its Advocacy 2006 campaign. The campaign is focused on increasing staff levels, to provide an extra twenty minutes of care time per resident. Currently, LTC staff have an allotted ten minutes to get a resident up, dressed, to the bathroom and to the dining room.

“We simply want more care time for the people who were the backbone of our society. They deserve better care,” says Kelly Burns, administrator of the Peterborough home. Burns invited Jeff Leal, local Liberal MPP, to speak to a gathering of residents at the home Friday.

The meeting also brought together representatives of the Family Council, more than fifty residents, nursing staff, and home volunteers.

“I ask government officials if they themselves only take ten minutes in the morning to prepare for the day,” said Burns at Friday’s meeting, held in the home’s dining room.

“Despite our staff’s ongoing efforts to care for our residents with love, care and dignity it is difficult when they themselves don’t have adequate staffing levels to meet the care needs that are required.”

The OLTCA has requested $306.6 million in order to hire an additional 2,300 staff for its member homes. The organization cites three provinces – Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba, where residents receive three hours of care - as a reachable standard.

David Jones, a member of the resident’s council, and Phil Walker, volunteer and Family Council member, both echoed Burns’s sentiments, emphasizing the dignity that comes with increased care.

MPP Leal followed, noting recent government increases to long term care but conceding that “it never seems to be enough.”

“I know how hard people in this field work – my mother was a nurse. You go beyond the call of duty regularly.”

Leal pointed to Peterborough’s sizeable aging population as a particular challenge, while promising to advocate for increased funding. The new LHIN structure should allow communities to more adequately address specific needs, he added.

Residents and staff grilled Leal on inaction over staffing issues in long term care, as well as discrepancies in CMI (case mix index) funding. Leal recognized that staff are often so strapped for time that the index isn’t adequately filed, hampering chances for increases.

A number of staff and residents suggested that CMI ratings happen more frequently – quarterly, for example - to properly match the ever-changing population and growing care needs in LTC homes.

“I am quite intrigued by the idea of quarterly CMI reports,” says Leal. “It might help give a truer indication of what’s required for each home.”

Leal added that his next step is to author a detailed letter documenting the issues raised at the meeting to the Hon. George Smitherman, Minister of Health and Long Term Care.