After the 2019 Emerald Hall decision affirmed that people with disabilities have the right to adequate care in the community, and after the UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities criticized how Nova Scotia is doing on housing for the disabled (Nova Scotia still has more than 1,000 people with severe disabilities […]
Health minister promises to fix long-term care, but offers no money to actually fix it
Last week’s expert-panel report into the province’s flat-lining long-term care system offered a clarion call for the government to finally fix our ailing long-term care system. But the panel didn’t provide a clear, costed pathway to do that, in part because the government didn’t provide it with enough useful data about the existing problems and in part because the government wrote the panel’s job description precisely to make it difficult for them to talk about the only issue that will ultimately matter: money.
Health Minister Randy Delorey says his government “will pursue and act upon” the five recommendations and 22 action items in last week’s expert-panel report into the province’s flat-lining long-term care system. The backdrop: in September, a woman with untreated, infected bedsores died in a long-term care facility. She wasn’t the first. And questionable patient deaths...
The nursing home “expert advisory panel” is prohibited from recommending radical or costly changes
When law enforcement agencies confront a potentially dangerous situation which they need to defuse quickly, they send in a Special Weapons And Tactics (SWAT) team. When governments face a potentially damaging political issue they create a panel. After the deaths of three former nursing home residents linked to badly infected bedsores, months of mounting complaints...
NDP proposal would legislate minimum nursing home staffing levels and make public inspection reports
NDP leader Gary Burrill is turning up the pressure on the McNeil Liberal government to improve care for 6,900 people in long-term care facilities across the province. Burrill and NDP Health critic Tammy Martin were accompanied at today’s news conference by a woman who claims there isn’t sufficient staff at the Parkstone Enhanced Living complex […]
People are living too long in nursing homes
It costs lots of money to care for elderly people, but the province is making progress in expanding the Home Care system so that only the most frail and vulnerable go to nursing homes.
Nova Scotia spends $11 million on health care every day — that’s $131 every second. Chances are someone in your family is one of 6,900 people receiving care in a Nova Scotia nursing home right now. Or perhaps you know one of 1,463 people waiting to be admitted — a wait list that has dropped 40 per...
Nova Scotia still failing to meet nursing home standards
As a cost-saving measure, New Brunswick has slashed the number of nurses in nursing homes. Nova Scotia officials promise they're not following suit, but neither are they living up to existing staffing requirements.
Earlier this month, immediately following its budget, the New Brunswick government notified nursing homes that financial pressures dictate they must reduce the number of licensed nurses on staff. The decision set off alarm bells for nursing home operators in New Brunswick and has the nurses’ union in Nova Scotia concerned similar cuts might happen here....