The latest directory of seniors’ care services shows that Ridgewood Lodge in Princeton, like most other facilities in British Columbia, is not operating up to the province’s own standards when it comes to hours of care per patient per day.
Only 15 per cent of facilities meet or exceed the standard of 3.35 hours of care for each patient each day.
Residents at Ridgewood receive 3.19 hours.
Those numbers are contained in the Seniors Advocate Residential Care Facilities report.
The key reason for the shortfall is money to pay sufficient staff. The province-wide survey finds that overall, B.C. residential care facilities are funded at an average of 3.14 direct care hours per resident per day. Contracted facilities were funded for an average of 3.01 hours, and health authority owned and operated facilities averaged 3.35 hours, almost up the the B.C. government’s target.
Jennifer Whiteside, secretary-business manager of the Hospital Employees’ Union, said the report is a familiar story of understaffed facilities in B.C, with 85 per cent of them still not meeting the government’s own standard.
“When there are not enough staff on shift to do their jobs to the highest possible standard, seniors and those who provide their care are put at risk,” Whiteside said. “Staff simply cannot provide the level and quality of care needed to keep themselves and their residents safe.”
The directory contains information on 293 residential care facilities that have 27,142 publicly subsidized beds. The online database is now searchable by regional health authority, municipality and name of care facility, so seniors and their families can check the status of each one.
The report also includes a snapshot of each facility and compares levels or care and incidents.
In the 2016-2017 study period Ridgewood had a much higher rate of wandering patient incidents than the rest of the province, 8.1 per 100 beds versus an average of 1.6 per hundred beds for the rest of BC.
However there were no medication errors with adverse events occurring in Princeton, and no other injuries.
Resident profiles for Princeton patients match up fairly consistently with other facilities with a few notable exceptions
There are 34.5 per cent of patients in Ridgewood with depression, compared to a provincial average of 24.1 per cent.
However less than one per cent of Ridgewood residents have physically abuse behavior compared to 8.4 per cent provincially.
Ridgewood Lodge has 37 beds, 33 rooms and 2 semi-private rooms.
With files from Tom Fletcher.
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