In its most recent licensing decision, the PEI Community Care Facilities and Nursing Homes Board ruled that three privately owned nursing homes — Garden Home, South Shore Villa, and Clinton View Lodge — still do not meet the province’s inspection standards for full licenses.
The three homes have been operating on provisional licenses and that status will last at least until the end of the month, according to decisions published online Thursday evening.
Also, an admissions freeze was left in place at Clinton View Lodge, meaning the facility cannot accept new residents.
No one from the PEI Department of Health and Wellness or the homes involved could be reached for comment Friday.
Whisperwood Villa is also operating under a provisional license which is pending review by the end of the month.
Pat Armstrong is a long-term care researcher at York University in Ontario. She said if for-profit nursing homes across the country cannot achieve adequate standards of care, the affected provincial government should consider taking control of the facilities.
“One of the problems is when you contract out these services and they don’t do what you tell them to do, then it’s very, very hard to shut them down because what are you going to do with the people that are in them? said Armstrong.
“So we have to make sure from the start that the quality of their care is there. It’s about people’s lives.”
The approval letters sent to the PEI long-term care homes also call for updated wound care policies, staff training and evidence that gaps in service related to wound care have been addressed.
Armstrong said it could be a matter of life and death.
Wound care sounds like a side issue, but it isn’t. It can ruin your life and end up killing you if not managed appropriately. – Pat Armstrong
“Wound care sounds like a side issue, but it isn’t. It can ruin your life and eventually kill you if not managed properly,” she said.
“So I think we need to say really seriously that old people count.”
dr Samir Sinha is Director of Geriatrics at Sinai Health and University Network in Toronto. He also chairs the Health Standards Organization (HSO) technical committee that developed new national long-term care standards that were released in late January.
He said it is “concerning” that the PEI long-term care homes are not meeting provincial standards, especially since those standards are less comprehensive than the new national standards.
“On Prince Edward Island, as you know, there are criteria by which private homes are rated. But if you look at the new [national] Standard of Care, for example, there are many discrepancies between what it covers and how comprehensive it is, and what the PEI standards actually do or don’t cover.
Sinha said every islander deserves the same level of care and every home should receive the same level of public funding, whether it’s a public or private home.
Ramsay Duff, president of the Nursing Home Association of PEI and CEO of the MacLeod Group of Seniors Homes, was interviewed for a Feb. 7 news item and pointed out that private nursing homes get about $135 per resident per day while state mansions do getting closer to $280.
Sinha thinks that should change.
“If I had a magic wand, I would say, let’s standardize how we fund long-term care in Prince Edward Island, let’s make sure everyone is held accountable to the same national standard through accreditation, inspection and enforcement mechanisms, and let’s ensure that there is a high level of accountability to members of the public,” he said.
