Chinook regional Hospita

By Connor Gunn

Alberta providing $22M to increase pay for home care providers, $14M for continuing care

Sep 9, 2021 | 4:10 PM

EDMONTON, AB – Up to $36 million in new funding will improve wages and create additional workforce capacity to allow more Albertans to receive care outside of hospitals and free up resources to treat COVID-19 patients during the fourth wave.

Over the next two years, the province will pay those care providers that amount of money to have more Albertans get the care they need in their homes and communities.

Health Minister Tyler Shandro says more than 400 Albertans are currently waiting in hospitals to move into continuing care facilities, with many more waiting to return to their homes outside of facility-based care with the support of home care services.

“We know that home care agencies are experiencing staffing challenges. Increasing the pool of available staff will mean we can move additional patients from hospitals to their homes when it is safe to do so.”

“This is a benefit to patients who would rather get the care they need in the comfort of their own homes. It also benefits hospitals as they manage the increasing number of patients who need beds because of COVID-19 complications.”

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The province provided the following information about the funding.

Wage increases for health-care aides:

Contracted home care agencies will receive $22 million over two years in additional funding to provide wage increases to their certified healthcare aides. The additional funding will provide a pay increase of $2 an hour for the next 13 months for healthcare aides working in-home care agencies contracted with Alberta Health Services.

The purpose of providing this increase in funding rates is to help retain current and recruit additional staff, which will allow more Albertans to be cared for in their own homes. There are currently hundreds of vacant healthcare aide positions in the home care system.

Alberta Health Services is also increasing home care hours authorized for agencies; the funding increase will help the agencies meet these hours. This supports the shift to more care in the community, as recommended in the facility-based continuing care review.

Expanding the home care workforce:

An additional $14 million is being provided to expand workforce capacity to support home care and continuing care facilities on a short-term basis until March 31, 2022.

There is a need to be able to respond quickly to new health system pressures arising from COVID-19.

Similar to the comfort care aide program that provided a staffing pool for continuing care facilities, this additional funding will support a variety of innovative approaches to mobilize existing or new staff to where they are most needed for short periods of time.

More details on the announcement can be found at alberta.ca.