By Cecilia Nasmith/Northumberland 89.7/Today’s Northumberland
Staffing shortages at the Golden Plough Lodge, and the necessity to fill them from private agencies, cost county taxpayers $1.9-million between 2022 and 2024.
GPL Administrator Alanna Clark shared the news at December’s meeting of the Northumberland County council Community Health Committee, discussing the special difficulties the 151-bed facility presents for its staff.
“Generally these residents are elderly and require a high degree of physical care, or they are living with diseases like Alzheimer’s or other forms of dementia and they require constant care,” Clark said.
Staffing includes Personal Service Workers, Registered Practical Nurses, Registered Nurses and physicians on call to act in medical-director and attending-physician roles.
Factors in the high staff turnover include heavy regulation, lower salaries compared to other facilities and demanding working conditions. The result is difficulty recruiting and retaining skilled staff.
To ensure adequate staffing, they have turned to health-care staffing agencies and, though many act responsibly, some do not. And many of the latter (which she termed “exploitative agencies”) charge exorbitant fees.
During peak holiday and vacation times, and occasions when staff are pulled from their regular duties for training, they have had to resort to this contingency for every category of staffer, particularly RPNs.
Exacerbating the situation is the provincial government’s requirement of four hours of care daily per patient and the move next year to a larger facility with 180 beds instead of 151.
Other facilities face the same struggles, Clark said. Looking at Eastern Ontario Wardens Caucus data from January to June 2024, Northumberland County falls somewhere in the middle of the pack in terms of such expenditures.
Through a collaborative purchasing group that would utilize different agencies, she added, they hope for more reasonable costs ahead, with the transition to begin as early as mid-month.
