Long-term care best when public

Long-term care in Manitoba remains in a crisis, causing fear among the elderly and their families as they face complex health needs. Currently, too many Manitobans shoulder the burden of caregiving, often as unpaid caregivers, placing additional stress and workload on them. Public support exists, but much of the labor is privatized onto family members, especially women.

Long-term care is a mix of private for-profit, public, and private not-for-profit operations in Manitoba. Recently, private for-profit care homes have been in the news for negative reasons, with residents losing access to their home-care program due to layoffs of healthcare aides. Another example of private PCH failures was the closure of the Golden Door Geriatric Centre, resulting in the loss of 78 PCH beds before the province intervened.

Not-for-profit care homes can be part of the model, but the profit motive should not be involved in health care, including long-term care. Research shows that Manitoba's private, for-profit PCHs generate profits through lean services, depressed wages, and cutting corners on resident care, leading to poor quality care and health risks.

Manitoba's government shows motivation to invest in long-term care, support better wages, and improve working conditions for healthcare workers, but the goal of a fully public, non-profit system is still far off. However, there are steps that can be taken to improve the conditions of work and care in PCHs in the short term. One crucial step is to legislate minimum standards of hours of care per resident per day, with the Canadian standard being 4.1 hours per day.

Currently, Manitoba falls short of this target. Increasing staffing to meet and exceed this standard would improve care quality, residents' lives, and reduce staff burnout and attrition. This would benefit all Manitobans who deserve to age with dignity and access to holistic, high-quality care throughout their lives.