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Media Release
Long Term Care Residents’ Safety Initiatives
For Immediate Release
Markham...On behalf of the Board and members of the Ontario Long Term Care Association (OLTCA), we extend our deepest condolences to the family and friends of Wally Baker. Although this tragic incident was isolated, OLTCA immediately messaged all of our 430 member homes across Ontario to flag potential safety concerns with respect to the particular piece of resident lifting equipment in question because resident safety is our top priority. Any incident is one too many.
Investigations are proceeding into this situation to make determinations on possible product safety issues.
OLTCA as an association has been the frontrunner in many resident safety initiatives, working with the Institute for Safe Medication Practices to promote reduction of medication errors and supporting homes in falls reduction programs under the Safer Healthcare Now campaign. Ontario’s more than 600 long term care home sites are home to some 76,000 residents who receive the care they require on a daily basis from roughly the same number of dedicated and caring staff.
Resident lifts and transfers are a very common occurrence in long term care homes. In fact, approximately 120,000 resident lifts take place every day, from bed to wheelchair for example.
A total of $89M dollars was recently invested in state of the art resident lifting equipment for long term care. OLTCA then provided education on the safe operation of this new lifting equipment for all member homes. In addition, OLTCA raised safety issues such as preventative and ongoing maintenance of lifting equipment, and testing the ability of lifting equipment to handle loads, as essential to address to ensure resident safety.
The infusion of the new resident lifting equipment into the long term care sector addressed a need to support our nurses in preventing injury to their backs. Also, during a recent evaluation of the new resident lifting equipment, residents of homes reported greater comfort and better body positioning as a result of the new equipment.
As well, the Government of Ontario committed funds in the Provincial Budget to provide more hands-on care for Ontario long term care residents. Targeted funding will go toward hiring 2000 more nurses and 2500 more personal support workers over the next 3 to 4 years. We are advocating for use of this funding to support direct hands-on care in the homes as quickly as possible.
We will continue to gather and disseminate relevant information and facts on resident lifting equipment as new information becomes available. All the member homes of OLTCA stand dedicated to working with the Ontario Government in continually pushing forward to raise the bar for safe, quality resident care.
Media Contact: Gilbert Heffern, Director of Communications and Public Affairs, 905-470-8995, ext. 25; 647-999-8341 (cell); gheffern@oltca.com