Postcard campaign engaging residents, families, staff members
Friday February 29, 2008 -- Deron Hamel
Ontario Long-Term Care Association (OLTCA) membership homes are well into this year’s campaign to raise awareness of the need for increased funding to the sector ahead of the release of the 2008 provincial budget.

The OLTCA says this year’s budget, which will be released in the spring, needs to contain a $513-million earmark in order to meet the staffing and supply demands in Ontario’s long-term care homes.

While past campaigns have focused on a single issue, this year’s campaign, entitled “Long-Term Care Needs More Than a Band-Aid,” is aimed at addressing a variety of challenges faced by the long-term care sector.

By taking this approach, membership homes believe they can tackle many challenges, rather than taking a single-issue “band-aid” approach.

The campaign’s slogan is embossed on scores of postcards produced by the OLTCA, which were given to membership homes in mid-February. Residents, their families and staff members have been encouraged to educate everyone they know about the need for increased funding to the long-term care sector and sign the postcards in support of the campaign.

According to the OLTCA, a $513-million injection would:

• Provide an additional 24 minutes of daily care to help residents get to meals, go to the bathroom, etc., by adding more personal support workers
• Increase the average number of daily incontinence changes from 3 1/2 to approximately five for those who need it
• Increase programs and activities during the evening and on weekends by adding an activity aide per home seven days a week
• Improve dietary assessments by increasing the time for consultation with clinical dieticians
• Improve meal services by adding food service workers
• Improve clinical assessments be adding more registered nursing staff
• Stop the four-year erosion in housekeeping, laundry, maintenance and other services

Joanne McGee, administrative assistant at Jarlette Health Services-owned Meadow Park Chatham, says many family members have been participating in the postcard-signing drive, adding the endeavour has gone well.

Representative from the home, accompanied by a resident and the head of the home’s family council, will hand deliver 158 postcards to Chatham—Kent—Essex MPP Pat Hoy today (Feb. 29).

At a recent family council meeting, members expressed interest in getting involved with the campaign and soon rallied the rest of their family and friends to get the postcards signed and returned ahead of the meeting with Hoy.

Volunteers have been a big part of making the campaign a success at the home, notes McGee.

“One volunteer sat at the front desk with a pile (of postcards) and every time somebody walked by she explained what it was and asked if they’d sign,” says McGee. “We got several cards signed that way.”

Linda Kay, director of care clerk at Extendicare Haliburton, says about 100 postcards have been signed and returned to the home. Kay says the 60-bed home is happy with the support it has received during the campaign.

Like with other OLTCA membership homes, representatives from Extendicare Haliburton will be meeting with their local MPP to deliver the postcards. Staff members, residents and family council members will soon be dropping off the cards at Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock MPP Laurie Scott’s office.

Kay applauds the efforts of the families of residents for their efforts.

“We’ve got quite an active family council and we’ve got some family members who are here regularly on an all-day basis who have taken (the postcards) out into the community,” she says. “We’re making sure that everybody knows about it.”

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