March 05, 2008
From Mr. Tony Baena, Vice President Operations, Retirement Concepts
The Hospital Employees' Union is playing politics with seniors' care by demanding that the government step in to stop the reduction in staffing at Dufferin Care Centre.
The HEU knows full well that in October 2007 staffing levels at Dufferin were increased by the addition of 141 temporary hours per week to facilitate a smooth transition to a new care service provider and to ensure the health and safety of residents during that period. This is a standard operating practice when making a transition of this type.
The transition is now complete and starting later this month we will reducing the staffing level, as had been planned, by 110.5 hours a week, which accounts for approximately 4.3 per cent of average weekly hours worked at Dufferin during the transition. However, staffing levels at the facility will still be approximately 30.5 hours higher than they were before the start of the transition.
The HEU's misleading claims are clearly linked to the campaign being waged by the NDP against Retirement Concepts as part of its battle with the provincial government to undermine public confidence in the seniors' residential care system.
These attacks also demonstrate the utmost disrespect for the 1,500 staff who work at our 15 care facilities across B.C. and provide dedicated service every day to more than 2,000 residents.
In the past, Retirement Concepts has maintained or increased staffing levels at all its facilities. Moving forward, we will be posting any staffing level changes on our website so that people can see for themselves what changes we make and where and not have to rely on politically-biased information from critics with ulterior motives.
Within the next two weeks, we will also start posting on our website summaries of all Licensing authority reports related our facilities. We believe in transparency and see no reason why anyone should need to use a Freedom of Information request to get important information about a care home.
We also believe this approach will provide the public with a more balanced view of seniors' care facilities, the challenges they face and how they deal with those challenges. As things now stand, people are having to rely on reports based on selective Freedom of Information requests that may have happened at one operator's facility years previously.
