A personal care home in Winkler, Man., has been forced to close 26 desperately needed beds after its elevator became unstable, and petitioned the provincial government for months before Shared Health finally committed to fund the repair.
Karin Oliveira, CEO of Salem Home, had to make the difficult decision last month to move 26 people off the facility’s second floor after she lost confidence in the elevator that kept breaking down.
“The risk of it failing is big so we didn’t want to risk of … all of a sudden it stops working and then they are stuck, literally stuck up there.” she said.
Salem Home officials had known for years the elevator needed to be repaired, and put out a tender in March to get the work done.
However, after they posted the tender Oliveira couldn’t get a straight answer from Shared Health about whether it would fund the roughly $200,000 repair. The answer would give them the green light to move the patients, but no one was getting back to them.
“We were waiting to hear, can we do it [move the patients] or not,” she said of her request to Shared Health.
“The board of directors just said, ‘OK, well, let’s just do it because we can’t wait. The longer we wait, the harder it gets.’ So we went ahead and moved the residents.”
54 people waiting for a bed at Salem Home
Oliveira has 54 people waiting to get into the 145-bed, non-profit home. The loss of these beds meant those people would be waiting even longer.
About 20 of those people are waiting in hospital, taking up a bed that could be used for someone needing treatment for an emergency, she says.
“For residents, waiting in a hospital is not good. We see that they decline,” she said, “so that’s very sad to see.”
Once the residents were moved, the home continued to wait in vain for word about the funding.
Across Manitoba, hundreds of seniors are waiting for a nursing home bed in hospital or at home, and in southern Manitoba, where Salem Home is located, the wait is the longest.
Within the region, seniors are waiting an average of six months for a spot, according to Southern Health, the regional health authority. At Salem Home, the wait time has climbed to 15 months because of the bed closures.
The region represents more 226,000 residents who live in the southernmost area of the province in places such as Altona, Winkler, Steinbach and Emerson.
Other regions are also trying to deal with the problem. Currently:
- Prairie Mountain Health’s wait time is about three months.
- The Northern Regional Health Authority’s wait time is also three months.
- The Interlake-Eastern Regional Health Authority says its wait is about three weeks.
- The Winnipeg Regional Health Authority says it doesn’t track its wait times.
Funding finally approved
The months-long stalemate between Salem Home and health officials ended when CBC inquired about the elevator and asked why funds for its repair had not been forthcoming.
On Monday, Oliveira received an email from a Manitoba Health policy analyst confirming that Shared Health had agreed to reimburse Salem Home for the project, which would begin in January.
Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara told CBC the delays in communication between Salem Home and the government were concerning.
“I’m happy to say that they have been funded to ensure they can repair that elevator, and the work will be commencing soon,” Asagwara said.
“This is one of those situations where when we were made aware of what was going on, we worked very hard and very quickly to get it addressed.”
A Shared Health spokesperson confirmed it will be funding the project.
A recent CBC investigation found Manitobans were charged millions of dollars to live in a hospital because of a policy of charging people a residential fee once they are deemed ready to go to a personal care home — even if a bed isn’t available.
From 2021 to the end of this fiscal year, residents in the Southern Health Region were charged more than $1.46 million in fees while waiting in the hospital for a nursing home bed.
Currently, 110 people in the region are waiting in hospital for a bed, and a further 141 are waiting in their community for one.
Other beds closed in Southern Region
Salem Home isn’t the only nursing home being forced to close beds during a time they are in dire need.
Staffing shortages mean 10 new beds that were placed at Boyne Lodge in Carman have never opened. Emerson’s nursing home currently has six of its 20 beds closed because of staffing problems.
Until recently, Rest Haven in Steinbach had closed 31 of its 143 beds because of staffing shortages. Officials say roughly 10 remain closed.
While the longest wait times are found in the Southern Health region, there are currently no plans to build nursing homes in the region.
Stephanie Rozsa, the eastern director of Health Services for Personal Care Homes for the region, says this might be because more care homes aren’t always the answer.
Part of the reason waits are so long is because for many in rural areas, a nursing home is their only option, she says.
“There is no other housing options available to folks. We have limited access to supportive housing, affordable assisted living,” she said.
“And because of that, PCH [personal care home] becomes the only option for folks. And I think that’s another reason that our numbers are as high as they are.”
Oliveira says about 10 of the people on her wait list could be in supportive housing instead of a nursing home, but the 20 beds in the area are already full.
Staffing still a challenge
As for staffing, Rozsa admits the region is facing an uphill battle.
Micro-credential programs have helped train workers so they can be hired, she says, but keeping them in the area is always a challenge. A nurse from the Philippines is working in the community, but at this point, she says, the market for international educated staff is tapped out.
However, things are looking up, Rozsa says.
“I am really hopeful, based on the hiring that I see happening at the sites, that we will be in a place shortly where we will be able to open all of our available beds,” she said.
“It has taken us time to get here, and it’s going to take us time to get back to a great place in staffing.”
The waitlist to get into Salem Home in Winkler, Man., is 15 months, yet the care home was forced to keep 26 beds empty because of a broken elevator. The province said it would fund it, but seven months later the money still hasn’t flowed.
