Families worried as Points West Living cut staff, hours at some locations

A resident sits in his room at a long-term care home in Laval, Que., Friday, February 25, 2022. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes)

Staff cuts at Points West Living (PWL) senior communities and continuing care sites in Alberta have families of residents worried the company won’t be able to meet the needs of residents.

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When Charlene Tondu moved her mother into the PWL community in Wainwright, she said she had a good feeling about the facility. And getting to know the busy but kind health-care aides looking after the seniors helped reassure Tondu her mom was in good hands.

As word of impending layoffs and reduced clinical care hours began circulating among residents' families, Tondu said she grew concerned the remaining staff wouldn’t be able to maintain the same standard of care.

The PWL Wainwright community includes suites for independent living, assisted living, and designated memory care. Tondu said she has learned PWL plans to eliminate one health-care aide position from the memory care wing and reduce shift hours for other staff on site.

With many of the 24 memory care residents needing assistance with everything from being fed to going to the bathroom to getting in and out of bed, Tondo worries the staff shortfall will put seniors’ safety at risk.

“I’m lucky right now that my mom is fairly easy. But with her dementia, if you rush her, she’s going to get angry,” Tondu said.

“When you get three (health-care aides) that have to give pills to 24 people and get them up from bed, I can guarantee you those dementia people are going to get rushed and they’re going to get angry. And when a dementia patient gets angry, they get combative.”

Having worked as a nurse for 40 years, Tondu said she’s seen firsthand how even a small reduction in staff can create big impacts on patient care.

“That’s the direction we’re going in and that worries me,” she said.

Marlene Morin, chief operations officer of Connecting Care, which owns and operates PWL, confirmed the number of health care aides in Wainwright and other locations were being reduced, but declined to give more details.

Morin said the Wainwright facility was “overstaffed,” and the impending changes will bring it in line with PWL’s other operations.

“When we did our budgets and stuff like that, in our funding letter, we found that our clinical care was at 106-per-cent overfunding, so we brought it back in line with some of our other communities,” Morin said.

“We had more staff for the 69 care beds (in Wainwright) than we had for one of our other buildings that had 88 care beds, and they have no problems. Their residents are well taken care of. So, I think right from the beginning, for a long time, Wainwright has been overstaffed.”

Morin said the safety and care of all PWL residents is still “first and foremost, and they will be taken care of as well as they were taken care of before.”

Tondu said she has a hard time accepting the budget revision justifies the reduction in direct care residents will receive.

“You’re talking like six per cent over (budget). To my mind, that’s not enough to warrant cutting 12 hours of direct care time per day,” Tondu said.

Morin confirmed other PWL facilities were facing similar cuts to health care aides, though she did not specify how many or at which locations.

The Alberta Union of Provincial Employees (AUPE) represents workers at continuing-care sites operated by PWL in Cold Lake, Drayton Valley, Stettler, and Vegreville. The union said in a statement it is not aware of any cuts to staff hours at these sites.

A spokesperson for AUPE said they share concerns the cuts at PWL sites will put added pressure on workers and residents.

“Instead of focusing on resident care, private operators are focused on increasing profits and cutting costs,” they said.

“This fuels the drive to cut jobs and to ask workers to do more with less. This leads to staff shortages, overwork and worker burnout being widespread throughout the continuing-care sector.”

By Brett McKay, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, St. Albert Gazette.