Nova Scotia is spending $45M on travel nurses to help the long-term care sector – Halifax | globalnews.ca

By early 2022, Nova Scotia is forced to close hundreds of long-term care beds due to staffing shortages.

Now, the province says only seven beds are closed.

Over the past year and a half, the province has invested heavily in programs to bring in more CCAs, including free tuition and financial aid for books. That program has already signed up 1,000 students and the province hopes to reach 2,000 continuing care assistant (CCA) students in two years.

Meanwhile, the province has paid heavily for travel nurses to help stabilize the workforce and fill the gap.

“This is definitely an interim measure while we grow the workforce,” said Tracy Barbrick, associate deputy minister for seniors and long-term care.

The department confirmed that since fall 2021, the province has spent $45 million on travel nurses to serve as RNs, LPNs and CCAs in long-term care facilities.

“I was surprised it was that much,” said Janet Hazelton, president of the Nova Scotia Nurses’ Union.

Unions in the province have been vocal against the use of traveling nurses in health care. Hazelton noted that traveling nurses earn significantly more than nurses in the province which brings down work ethic when they work side by side.

Hazelton said that while she knew about the use of travel nurses in acute care, she was surprised by how little they are used in long-term care and said she has some safety concerns.

“In long-term care we have fewer licensed staff, fewer RNs and LPNs in the building,” she said.

“If there’s one or two of those travel nurses in the building, they don’t have colleagues to call[to say]’What’s the routine? What should I do in that situation?'”

But Barbrick said all travel nurses still need to be licensed to practice in Nova Scotia and all the same standards and regulations apply, adding that the department doesn’t share the concerns about safety.

For additional pay, Barbrick said travel nurses are being used as a temporary stop gap measure.

“Those travel nurses have no pension, no benefits, no job security,” she said.

“They pay for accommodation so it’s certainly a high number per hour but there’s a lot of extra cost to them and no job security in the process.”

Ultimately, Barbrick says the province is focused on a single standard of care where all long-term care residents receive 4.1 hours of care.

Currently, 48 percent of long-term care facilities are reaching that goal, and an additional 22 percent of facilities are on track to meet the goal and have received funding to hire the staff needed to reach the goal.

The 4.1 (hours of care) for Nova Scotia reflects three hours of CCA’s and 1.1 hours of LPN’s. We are the only province in the country that has made this commitment,” Barbrick said.

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Halifax nurses union says health worker shortage is severe

While unions have been demanding 4.1 hours of care for years, CUPE president Nan McFadgen says the province is still falling short because they are demanding 4.1 hours of dedicated care from CCAs in addition to 1.3 years of care from nurses. Were staying

“We expect to be 4.1 hands on care hours and that’s really a 15-year-old standard, so we’re lobbying for a 15-year-old standard,” McFadgen said.

Both unions are also pushing for the standard hours of care to be enshrined in law.

“So future governments won’t be able to play around with our numbers like they can now,” Hazelton said.

Barbrick says the minister for seniors and long-term care intends to introduce legislation that would do this but there is no timeline for when it will happen.

“When we know they really can’t do that, the 4.1 hours of care a nursing home would need per day, it would be premature for us,” Barbrick said.

“The steps we’ve taken so far are to build readiness, grow workforce, hire people to fill positions and when we can get people to 4.1, you can take it as an exercise from here on.” can make laws.”

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