A local residential home care provider has already implemented changes to staffing levels as part of a $5.3 million investment in the Interior Health Authority that was announced by the B.C. government last week.
Golden Life Management, which operates the Joseph Creek Village — an independent and assisted-living community in Cranbrook — said it increased their care hours back in May 2018.
The funding announcement from Interior Health goes towards supporting direct care that seniors receive in residential care homes, aiming for a target of 3.36 hours per resident-day, which had been set in 2008.
“We are proud to announce that Golden Life Villages have already implemented the funding back in May 2018,” reads a statement released from the company. “Golden Life long term care Villages changed staffing levels at that time to move up to 3.36 care hours per resident per day, this was done 3 years ahead of the provincial plan to have this done by 2021. The funding received from the province went directly to care wages.”
Golden Life Management is also in the process of constructing Kootenay Street Village, which will add 97 units and include 30 publicly funded beds through Interior Health along with six private-pay beds. The facility will also feature 61 independent living units, of which a minimum of 20 will be subsidized by funding through the Columbia Basin Trust.
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There are 31 residential care homes in the Interior that received the funding, which provided approximately 77,000 additional hours of care by September 2018.
The funding is part of a larger $48.4 million investment that’s being spread around to all health authorities to fund over one million more hours of direct care. It’s also part of a larger $240 million investment over three years that the NDP anounced last year.
“Interior Health is committed to providing a range of quality health services for seniors, including long-term care,” said Doug Cochrane, the board chair of the Interior Health. “Through this investment, we will see additional staffing and care hours to further support the needs of this medically complex and vulnerable population.”