Vernon care home executive hopeful new regulations will alleviate barriers for out-of-province care aides

An executive of a Vernon residential care facility is optimistic new regulation changes implemented by the province will help address staffing shortages in care homes throughout B.C.

The Ministry of Health announced last Wednesday that certified health care assistants from other provinces will no longer need to live in B.C. before applying to the BC Care Aide and Community Health Worker Registry. Instead they will be automatically enrolled in a standardized orientation program. The new regulations also mean out of province care aids no longer need to take the Nursing Community Assessment.

The new regulations are expected to take effect as of January 15 2020.

Hendrik Van Ryk is the chief operating officer of H & H Total Care Services, an organization that runs five residential care homes in B.C, including The Hamlets in Vernon, and three residential care facilities in Alberta. He says the new regulations are a good step forward towards alleviating barriers for out of province care aids.

“There’s been legislative roadblocks, cost roadblocks in terms of somebody coming from say Manitoba and wanting to move to Vernon to slide into a full time job. But yet, they have to come to B.C, have to be here, have to have a B.C residence before they can even apply and it was a barrier. It was purely a barrier,” he said.

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It was a barrier that Van Ryk has questioned for years.

“The response we got back was we want to protect the standards, we want to make sure we have high standards for care aides in B.C, and I thought to myself, what does that say about the quality people that come from Alberta? I would be insulted if I was a care aide in Alberta. What are you saying? That I’m not as good as care aides from B.C?”

“We have a home in Red Deer, and there are awesome care aids there. They do a fantastic job, just like the ones in B.C, so I don’t buy it,” said Van Ryk.

Filling staff shortages in the Okanagan is a catch 22 lately, according to Van Ryk, and it’s a job market that changes seasonally.

“Because there is so much work for care aides, they will often go casual in the summer so they can pick and choose when they want to work,” he said.

But as fall and winter hit, the job vacancy rate decreases, according to Van Ryk, because staff demand steadier work weeks.

The seasonal sentiment is shared at The Hamlet’s in Vernon where they are currently four staff members short, but come summer, the number of job vacancies increases to around 15.

Not surprisingly Van Ryk says seniors in residential care facilities are the most impacted by staff shortages.

“You can have Mrs. Jones with five different care aides in any given week because there are just different people working with us. And we get caught because we obviously need someone to provide the care,”

The Ministry of Health has pledged to allocate about $2.26 million over the next three years for a provincial recruitment strategy for care aids. Bursaries are expected to account for $1 million of the total funding while the rest is expected to go towards administrative costs, which includes the hiring of a consultant and a recruitment strategy.

Still, even with some red tape cut, Van Ryk says the province needs to look at restructuring the nearly $900 cost of registering as a care aid in B.C, to reduce yet another barrier faced by out of province care aids.

“It doesn’t sound like a lot, but if you are moving from out of province it becomes a lot,” he said.