Statement from CEO Donna Duncan:
“Like all health sectors in Canada and around the world, long-term care homes in Ontario are facing workforce shortages and turning to staffing agencies to help fill the gaps.
The Ontario Long-term Care Association has a longstanding Task Force advising on the human resources’ challenges facing long-term care homes, and on the ways to address them.
We welcome the Minister of Long-Term Care’s invitation to bring forward potential solutions. We will be drawing on the work of our Task Force and working with AdvantAge Ontario on how Ontario can address rising agency staffing costs. To manage the use of staffing agencies we ultimately will need to address the underlying issues driving the health system’s workforce challenges.
We thank the Ontario government for its investments to date to increase staff to help decrease the use of agency staff. We look forward to sharing opportunities for additional action on this complex issue and to working collaboratively with government and our healthcare partners to address the underlying challenges.”