Lambton County's General Manager of Long Term Care (LTC) is supporting proposed new standards for the industry.
Canada's Health Standards Organization came out with a list earlier this week, and said it's now up to the federal government to act.
Improvements would include upping the amount of direct care for residents to four hours a day, and paying workers more money.
Jane Joris welcomes the focus on elder-centred care and emotional wellbeing.
"If they were adopted and funded then we'd be very excited," said Joris. "We have been allocated ten new spaces in long-term care, and we'd like to build a small house for people with dementia on our campus in Petrolia. So, these standards certainly support those emotion-focused models of care."
Under the Fixing Long Term Care Homes Act, facilities will be required to provide an average of three hours and 15 minutes of direct care each day by the end of March, and four hours by 2025.
Joris said locally, we're above the current mandate, with each resident getting three hours and 45 minutes of direct care daily.
She said she would welcome wage increases for staff, noting there are currently some inconsistencies when it comes to worker pay.
"I know some homes that have been affected by Bill 124 (to cap wage increases for public sector employees at one per cent annually for three years), their staff are barely making minimum wage. That's a significant problem. The three hours of wage enhancement that PSWs received has caused some compression in the sector with other positions. There's RPNs and other positions in the homes that probably aren't being paid enough for the roles that they have. Often, you can go to other sectors and make more money for the same role. So, there is some work to do there."
Joris said they're always looking for new workers, given the aging workforce.
"People are leaving the workforce, so to be able to sustain that workforce that we need to provide four hours of care, we will need new workers. The province is also working toward increasing the number of beds in long-term care. That's going to require more workers, too."
In 2021, the federal government budgeted $3 billion to help provinces and territories apply standards to long-term care, top up wages, and improve staff to patient ratios.
The money also came with a promise from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to federally legislate safety in homes across the country.