Here we go again.

It is all about increasing corporate profits at the expense of quality of care. As long as the companies get the same dollars for each senior citizen they keep in a vegetative state, they will keep doing this. If you have ever been in a long term care facility during meal times you know how the shortage of staff effects the patients. It is a scandal and Gordon Campbell should be strapped to a chair and made to live in one for at least a few weeks so he would know.

There is no accountability for the money spent and they can spend more on administration while taking it from the hospital floor. In most facilities if it was not for family members going in, to regularly each day doing what the care givers are suppose to do, most of the patients would die much sooner. Maybe that is the hidden intent here.

I guess we're saving up for another massive tax cut for the wealthy.

Don't be fooled

The chaotic circumstances in this labour relations forum is exactly what the Liberals intended when they tore up collective agreements and amended the law (barring a central feature of most collective agreements (contracting out restrictions) and ending access to successorship rights in the Labour Relations Code). The system is DESIGNED to allow employers to defeat any attempt by workers to bargain collectively.

There are both long term and short term questions to be asked.

In the short term, part of the solution is extending to health workers the same rights other union workers enjoy. This means repealing draconian legislation that bars them from negotiating complete collective agreements and enforcing those rights under the Code.

In the longer term, the system needs reform. On a legal basis, the Code itself must be amended to allow successorships in contracting out circumstances. Currently, workers have no job protection if their work is lost when contractors change. It is a huge loophold that allows for the loss of rights merely because the contracted employer changes.

Secondly, we must ask why is there a need for companies like Retirement Concepts. They contract the work from the governement and then contract the work to someone else. The myth of the "efficiency" of the private sector is provided as the "reason", I suppose, but this myth has lost its shine. Lok at the continuing detoriation in the quality of private garbage services in the Tricities. Look at any long term evaluation of the extraordinary cost of P3s, like the RAV line. What we really have at these retirement places is just two vampire firms, the "owner" and the "contractor" whose central pupose is to suck money out of the system for their own profit.

At minimum, the contractors should be disallowed from bidding on any new work and the owner should have the money it receives from the public purse reviewed. Further, Retirement Concepts should not be allowed any new publicly funded beds.

Remember the Liberal smokescreen at the time of their anti-worker legislation. They claimed to be "putting the patient first" and redirecting the system to "patient centred care". When at the time these propaganda statements were challenged and the Liberals were accused of simply union busting and attacking the working standards of union members, the reaction of the regular media was to attack the critics as self-interested and self-centred.

Where are they now?

Living Hell

Not only are the residents of care homes receiving substand care, the care aids and LPN's looking after them are being treated terribly.

My wife has been an LPN at a care home for almost 20yrs now. Her and most of her colleages have been bumped, due to layoffs, into part time jobs, many of them offering less than 20hr/wk.

In order to make a living, they must rely on call outs. At the drop of hat they must be ready to travel to any one of three cities in our area and be prepared to work 12hr nights shifts without the rest they need to prepare.

The system has been screwed intentionally by Campbell to break the Unions. I wouldn't recommend anybody take a job in Health Care, its a living hell.

I'm Alright, Jack....I Got My 54 Per Cent

Thanks to the Tyee's Tom Sandborn for this article.

Nothing tells you more about the levels to which this government will sink in what has been a continuous and mean-spirited assault against seniors, health care workers, and the right to collectively organize and bargain.

I witnessed the tears, the stress, the threats to workers in the early days under Bill 29. I saw seniors and their families breaking under the stress of worrying over the intentionally quick-paced and rammed through nature of these malicious changes.

At the time, The UN singled out the Gordon Campbell government for violating worker's rights, for abusing the rights of women and children.... for the devastating effect of his government's legislation on the lives of the poor.

And yet the bullying, the ruthless ways of this truly wretched group of privateers hiding under the word "government" continues.

And the total disregard for our human rights, and for our working rights continues as well.

And so does their arrogant greed and the sociopathic nature of these constant betrayals of the public trust.

This is the same government that just gave themselves a massive 29 per cent pay raise and their wily GRinch of a leader just gave himself an ultra-ultra-massive 54 percent pay hike.

Meanwhile...

Seniors are facing a shortage of badly needed long term care beds promised by this government.... but never delivered.

BC has the fastest growing gap between the rich and the poor.

BC has the highest poverty rate.

BC has the highest poverty rate for seniors.

And BC has the highest overall poverty rate.

You don't have to be a rocket scientist to do the math. This is how it now works in this province:

All the less for you and me.....

All the more for Mr. Fifty-Four Per Cent.

Economic Units rather than Widgets!

Sad to say mopst governments and economists view senuors as economic units rather than respected members of society (most anyway, there is always some curmudgeon that may not!).

In fact, they may be viewed as underperforming economic units as their production is less than their associated costs.

What do you expect when we as a society apppear to worship the economy over eveything else!

Where's the Fed?

Where's Jim Sinclair? Where are the picket lines, the outrage, the marches? WHERE'S THE STRIKE? I've been a union member for 23 years, and I've never been more ashamed of that than since the Liberals took office. We talk the talk, but thats about it. What a disgrace.

Thanks Tom...

...Excellent detail in this article. One more detail would be excellent, if you could find it out. The Nanaimo facility will almost certainly have a contract to operate which specifies a certain fixed price per resident per day - somewhere betweeen $135 and $260 per resident per day.

If you could find out what that contract is let for, that would be valuable for comparison purposes.

Some older facilities have managed to hang onto their union contracts and have largely satisfied staff working for them, and are still only receive between $138 and $160 per resident per day. This includes the facility I help oversee.

Others that are newer may be receiving funds at the upper end of the scale, but are still insisting on contracting out labour, for reasons unknown, but quite possibly for profit.

Some facilities are operated by church, denomination or parachurch organizations, and run the gamut from $135 per resident per day to $210 per resident per day, but some still feel the need to contract out to save enough money to continue to operate the home. It's difficult to determine who is operating responsibly and who is merely greedy.

But when profit enters the picture, one can be sure that investors are at the head of the line.

There are many comments

There are many comments above that suggest that residents are getting crappy care under one form of corporate oversight or another. This is patently false.

All facilities in each of the health regions, and hence in the province, adhere to the same standards of residential care. This specifies the number of hours of patient care per resident, what form it must take, and to a large degree, how much recreation for each resident.

The care aides and LPNs who care for these residents don't work any harder or less depending on their salary - they all have difficult and complicated patient loads - some with 12 residents who can mostly feed themselves, and some with 3 who cannot feed or toilet at all. The only difference is the care aide who makes $8/hr is a lot closer to the poverty line - losing housing, taking second jobs, abandoning kids to "latchkey" syndrome, coming to work while sick and infecting others - than the one making $16 per hour.

Any takers among you for the daily chore of changing the soaked bedding and filthy diapers of 3 nearly-immobile patients twice or three times per shift each? At $16/hr? At $8?

The business model that lies at the root of complex care, as it is now known, accounts only for the dollar value of the worker and the resident, not the quality of life experienced by either. Even managers have a hard time assigning work fairly under this model. Yet, in theory, it's best for patients.

It's a difficult business to make work successfully. Corporations, especially those specializing in hotels, have no special advantage over other corporate entities, and churches and parachurch organizations seem to have the best handle on this model.

Those who have issues with loved ones in residential care of any kind are encouraged to talk seriously with the Director of Care at that institution. They all love and appreciate their residents, and may know even more about them than you yourselves do. Even if it is your mother we're talking about.

Let's raise the level of debate a bit here, shall we? This is a more important topic than most on this board.

Oh, and Tom...

...if you can, find out about Nanaimo what the patient mix is for the complex care there. How many assisted beds, how many "intermediate", how many "extended" care beds are paid for in this mix? (those aren't the real classifications - each has its own definition of care in the spectrum of care model). It is specified in the contract each facility signs with the Health Authority to get those public dollars.

And sometimes it's split up - part of the contract includes a certain sum per resident per day to cover the mortgage (capital costs) and a second, smaller part to cover the operating costs (wages, benefits, food, insurance etc.)

Anything you can find out would be helpful to the conversation here. I should be able to get some exact figures for facilities here for comparison purposes.

complex care

I agree with zalm's remarks above here - the situation for many long term care residents is dire but most of the staff in the facilities I'm familiar with ARE dedicated and professional.

On the other hand, staff shortages and temporary absences Do tend to create real problems for residents. When, for whatever reason, staff are not on duty because of illness (and this is generally worse in the summer when staffing is short due to leave and the like) or for other reasons, some residents DO tend to be overlooked or neglected when staffing is not optimal.

Not that they aren't fed, for example, but they may not get out of bed for the whole day (if they aren't independently mobile); they may wait longer than normal for meals or assistance eating and getting bedclothes and diapers changed - or just for assistance getting to the bathroom.

In the facilities I'm familiar with the staffing ratios appear to have little slack built into them and difficulties arise fairly frequently, in my experience. On the other hand, a had a relative die in one of these facilities not all that long ago and the palliative care she received was exemplary. God knows however, how many other residents were ‘neglected’ that day!

Would better funding help? Clearly yes: But in many cases the state of the physical plant is also a problem and demand seems constantly to exceed supply in the 'better' facilities.

I can't see how, done properly and under the current funding formula, there can be much prospect of profit...nor should there be.

Jim Sinclair

Sinclair spoke at a rally for these workers about two weeks ago and I understand there are rallies at the Legislature coming up soon.

Zalm and the Fed

Follow the money!! Zalm makes excellent points about how the system is corrupted by the profit motive. If "public/private partnerships" are to be acceptable, then the motivation of the "private" partner is of primary importance. Community based non-profits (religious or not) appear to have their eyes on what is truly important - the residents and the workers - the community in the facilities.

Following this logic, it seems a possible labour response may be best directed at those who finance these private sector abominations. Evidently, the Health Ministry and the regional health districts are primary targets, but there are also financial institutions involved. To me it makes more sense to picket Simpe Q's and Retirement Concepts' banks.

Hit them where it hurts.

All you have to do is look

All you have to do is look into the privatization/outsourcing to Sodexo Corporation in all BC Hospitals and Long Term Extended Care Institutions of the cleaning staff, meals, and all laundry which by the way goes to Calgary? Google Sodexo BC

senior facilities

I have watched the progress, or lack of progress in Seniors housing for some six years. In that time my wife has been in four senior facilities, three of which were closed. For the last ten months we have both been in the same facility, in my opinion a very good one, operated by I.H.A. with union employees. They are, however under constant threat of privitization, and always understaffed. Along with quite a number of other residents I am a WW II veteran and contributed I feel, to the Canada we now enjoy. Surely we should not be considered as a mere inconvenience just because we are no longer productive.