Paula Doucet: More staff, not just beds, key to nursing home issue

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When 2023 began, the wait list for nursing-home placements was 804 total individuals. Since then, there have been minor fluctuations in these figures, but, in August, the figure reached its highest yet – 984. Last month – October – the number was 958. This number accounts for those waiting in hospitals for a bed and those in the community, as well. Close to 1,000 New Brunswickers need long-term care.

Just last week, government announced a new home in the Moncton area that will add another 60 beds – this is the third such announcement since the beginning of 2023, with a stated goal that “With these new establishments, there are currently 74 nursing homes in the province providing 5,133 beds. The provincial government plans to increase this to 81 licensed nursing homes, adding 520 beds to the system.”

What is clear, is that even with increasing nursing home spots becoming available, the wait list is still growing faster than ever. The new spots becoming available are not meeting the needs; residents’ acuity has drastically increased over the years and require more professional staff to provide well-rounded team-based care. Currently, we are hearing about new suites or beds that sit vacant in nursing homes, because there aren’t sufficient staff to care for the residents.  

This is just another example of how real the healthcare human resources crisis really is – and how widespread. Human resources are needed in hospitals, in primary care, extra mural programs, public and mental health, and long-term care.  And the shortage of healthcare providers isn’t something that has just ‘snuck up on us’…we have known for several decades that we were heading toward a huge influx of older Canadians needing long-term care and a huge number of doctors and nurses retiring at the same time.  

What is to blame? Lack of planning, chipping away at health budgets, failing to educate enough nurses, and failing to hire sufficient resources to meet the needs of patients, clients and residents – all these factors are contributing to a crisis of care; a crisis of care that we pay taxes for, care that we, as Canadians, have a right to receive, and yet are not receiving.

Recently, situations in nursing homes have reached a point where newer facilities are “robbing Peter to pay Paul” by enticing stressed out, over-worked, under-staffed, and under-appreciated healthcare workers to leave their place of employment in hopes of finding greener pastures at these new nursing homes. The homes they left, which were working short to begin with, now have even fewer staff to care for their residents.

As the union representing registered nurses working in long-term care facilities, we need the people of New Brunswick and our government to understand what is happening. 

Clearly, we need new beds in long-term care settings, but the numbers also show that without increasing the staffing numbers, we just don’t have enough healthcare workers to take care of those in need.

New nursing homes and more beds is not the answer right now. For right now, the solution is to fix the staffing crisis by incentivizing our knowledgeable, senior staff to stay, and then to recruit new staff. Once the staffing crisis is over, then, and only then, can we safely open new nursing homes. 

The residents of New Brunswick need and deserve better healthcare and our seniors deserve better long-term care.  

Paula Doucet is the President of the New Brunswick Nurses Union, representing approximately 8 500 Registered Nurses, Licensed Practical Nurses and Nurse Practitioners.