A report from BC Seniors Advocate Isobel Mackenzie is pointing the finger at for-profit long-term care delivery in the province.
In an interview with Vista Radio, Mackenzie is calling for “fundamental reform” on how the provincial government funds long-term care providers as for-profit facilities continue to under-deliver care in relation to the funding they get.
“We found that the for-profit facilities delivered 500,000 hours less than they were funded to deliver and the not-for-profit societies delivered 93,000 hours more than they were funded to deliver.”
Mackenzie’s latest publication found not-for-profit facilities spent roughly 25% more per resident on direct care when compared to their for-profit counterparts.
In addition, for-profit long-term care buildings spent 42% more per bed than non-profits on capital building costs.
She noted these latest findings are enough to warrant “fundamental reform” as to how the provincial government funds contracted long-term care providers.
“Right now, we are giving operators money and we are saying, you get to keep whatever you don’t spend. We need to move to a funding model and enforcement of that funding model that says we are giving you this amount of money to spend on running this care home because you are going to need to spend this much to direct care and appropriate supply and food. If you don’t spend that money, then you need to give that money back to us – but, if you do spend that money we will pay you a fee or a profit for doing that.”
“The basic premise is you are rewarded financially for spending the money, not for, not spending the money,” said Mackenzie.
Currently, the provincial government transfers roughly two billion dollars per year to contracted operators to provide long-term care beds.
Mackenzie added there are roughly 28-thousand subsidized long-term care beds in BC. Almost two-thirds of them (or 65%) are provided by contracting out to private operators who may be classified as for-profit companies or non-profit societies.
Furthermore, the report found the cost of a publicly subsidized long-term care bed via a private operator has risen 35% in the last five years.
“That’s well in excess of the rate of inflation but we did have the pandemic during that time and we’ve been increasing our care hours over that period and we’ve been increasing the wages to the people who are working in long-term care,” Mackenzie said.
Lastly, the report examined five years of financial reports for over 90% of B.C.’s publicly subsidized contracted long-term care facilities and found that between 2017/18 and 2021/22:
- Direct care staffing costs increased 33%;
- Indirect care staffing costs increased 33%;
- Building costs increased 18%;
- Supplies and administrative costs increased 61%; and
- Profit increased 113%.
A link to the full report can be found here.
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