P.E.I.’s pandemic long-term care review panel makes 17 recommendations

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CHARLOTTETOWN, P.E.I. — A panel put collectively by the P.E.I. authorities to check the efficiency of the native private and non-private long-term care (LTC) houses in the course of the pandemic has launched a report with 17 suggestions.

The Lengthy-Time period Care COVID-19 Exterior Overview Panel’s report highlights 4 areas — every with a subset of suggestions — instantly associated to the pandemic: enhancing resident-centred care, strengthening an infection prevention and management, workforce restoration and improvement and enhancing the long-term resiliency of PEI’s system (oversight and accountability).

“The suggestions we’ve got laid out complement the nationwide requirements for LTC, and brought collectively, provide options to addressing challenges dealing with the LTC sector,” mentioned Michele Dorsey, panel chair and report writer.

As a part of the examine, the panel was tasked with commenting on the pandemic’s affect on numerous parts of LTC, which led the panel to establish different pre-existing circumstances that exacerbated the results, together with:

• LTC houses weren’t sufficiently ready for a pandemic;
• Private and non-private LTC houses within the province function in another way, leading to a number of inconsistencies and inequities;
• Neither LTC houses nor the system had sufficient knowledge to handle the system or a serious occasion akin to a pandemic;
• Resident-centred care high quality deteriorated;
• Facility lockdowns intensified resident isolation and had a unfavourable affect on their high quality of life and that of their household or companions in care;
• Staffing was inadequate to stability the calls for of the pandemic with resident care;
• Restrictions on workers mobility between workplaces negatively affected the flexibility of operators to adequately workers their houses;
• Excessive ranges of stress and burnout had a unfavourable impact on employees, leading to employees leaving LTC;

The province mentioned a few of the suggestions are already within the improvement or implementation stage, together with a transfer to align private and non-private sectors to a standard care workers mannequin that meets resident care necessities and consideration of minimal {qualifications}, recruitment, retention and addressing wage parity; strengthening and aligning an infection prevention and management capability throughout the sector; and establishing a single legislative act that governs all LTC houses, together with bringing them underneath a standard accreditation and inspection system.

The total report could be discovered online.