Two local personal care homes have joined forces with 27 others across Manitoba to push the provincial government for more support.

Altogether, the 29 homes, including Rest Haven in Steinbach and Villa Youville in Ste. Anne, make up the Manitoba Association of Residential and Continuing Care Homes for the Elderly or MARCHE.

Driedger says the expansion at Rest Haven is the product of generous funding.According to Havengroup Chief Executive Officer David Driedger, nearly all Manitoba care homes are dealing with the same three-pronged problem: human resource shortages, aging infrastructure, and rising operational expenses.

Driedger is careful not to downplay the important role Southern Health and the Regional Health Authorities have played in Rest Haven’s ongoing expansion. Thanks to their help as well as Steinbach’s relentless team of generous donors, Rest Haven has not experienced quite the same deficits as other care homes. Still, he says, there remains a financial need in both his facility and its many siblings.

“The senior care we provide today is much more complex than it was 30 or 40 years ago, particularly as it relates to cognitive disorders such as dementia,” says Driedger, who hopes the province will review present staffing guidelines. “We currently get funding for about 3.6 hours of care per resident per day and we believe we should be following other jurisdictions that have moved to 4.1 hours a day.”

In Ste. Anne, Villa Youville CEO Gilbert Audette says his centre is feeling much the same tension.

“People are coming into the care home at an older age with more complex needs and we are having to give this higher level of care with the same number of staff that we have had in the past.”

According to MARCHE, Government funding for personal care homes has been frozen for the past 10 years, not even adjusting for inflation. During that same period of time, dietary expenses at MARCHE homes increased by 36% and the cost of incontinent supplies increased by 50%.

“I don’t want the public to think we are not feeding their family members because we are choosing to pay other bills as that is certainly not the case,” stresses Audette, “But we are having to stretch every penny to the maximum.” He notes Villa Youville is not able to cater to the evolving needs of its residents without constantly cutting costs and relocating funds.

Though the gap between funding and need has been widening for years now, both facilities believe COVID-19 has helped expose the problem for what it is; additional staffing requirements and material expenses arising from pandemic regulations only seem to emphasize their lack.

The answer, however, is not necessarily just more money. Driedger and Audette say they desire thoughtful dialogue with the relevant government officials in order to reach a long term resolution, not a one time gift of cash to shut them up.

“We can’t continue to ignore the problem,” says Audette. “Communication is the starting point of resolving these kinds of issues.”