The Saskatchewan Government and General Employees’ Union is calling on the Premier to answer questions about the state of for-profit care homes in Saskatchewan. The union says that a B.C. report from the seniors advocate found that BC’s for-profit long-term care homes failed to deliver over 200,000 hours of publicly funded care in 2017-18, while generating huge profits. The union says for-profit care homes there spent an average of $10,000 less on direct care per patient than the not-for-profit sector; and, that not-for-profit long-term care facilities vastly outpaced their for-profit counterparts by providing 80,000 more hours of direct care than they were funded to deliver.

SGEU says it would be naïve to assume that Saskatchewan isn’t facing similar problems with our for-profit long-term care industry.

Specifically, SGEU wants to know:

How many hours of care are being delivered to residents in for-profit long-term care facilities across Saskatchewan? How many hours are being delivered in public facilities?

How has the delivery of care hours changed since the Sask. Party government eliminated minimum standards of care in 2011?

And, how much is being spent, per resident, on direct care in for-profit long-term care facilities? In public facilities?

On February 12th, SGEU wrote to Minister for Seniors Everett Hindley and Minister for Health Paul Merriman to ask them to end for-profit ownership of long-term care homes in Saskatchewan. To date, SGEU says it has not received a response.