Bruce County’s Long Term Care department is looking to hire three new members to help add support for staff at Brucelea Haven and Gateway Haven.
During a presentation to Bruce County council for Thursday’s budget meeting, Megan Garland, the Director of Long Term Care and Senior Services said that the department’s main expenses for 2023 are to add staff.
“There are three new positions in our budget. These positions are two nurse managers and one clinical support role. It’s important to note that the clinical support role is being supported by 60% from one-time funding that the homes received from 2022-2023. These new positions are extremely important to support the strategy of becoming the employer of choice for our homes.”
She says that these positions will facilitate a re-design of their nursing teams, and improve communication, employee retention, and staff engagement, as well as provide front-line leadership.
Garland also pointed out that there were going to be some challenges this year, particularly because they had to base their budgetary needs on how much funding was going to be provided by the Ontario government.
She says that “Unfortunately for 2022-2023, the provincial government did announce that they would be freezing the rates based on 2021’s rate. In our case, Brucelea Haven did see a decrease of $12,000 and Gateway Haven saw an increase of [31,000].”
Like many other industries, Garland also says that their projected expenses have gone up thanks to inflation, and depending on which vendors they work with, the increase could be anywhere from 2-6%.
They also need to take into account annual salary increases for their employees.
