The Department of Health Wellness is now requiring long-term care facilities to report all pressure wounds to the department.
The move comes after some high profile cases, including one where a 40-year-old long term care patient died after a bedsore became infected.
MJ MacDonald, executive director for the continuing care branch of the department, believes those incidents factored into the decision to initiate mandatory reporting.
“It was prompted by recent incidents and our goal as government is to ensure the best level of care and a level of assurance to the public,” says MacDonald.
MacDonald says they are still determining what actions could be taken once that information is collected.
“Part of the gathering of the information in the mandatory reporting we’ve initiated will really allow us to really assess and understand the situation,” she says.
Facilities are already required to have wound care protocols in place however the department is working on standardizing them across the province.
Meanwhile, the leader of the province’s NDP wants to see more transparency when it comes to long term care facilities.
Gary Burrill says the results of the twice yearly inspections of long term care facilities should be public.
“At the moment there are eight provinces in Canada that require this, there are only two that don’t and ours is on the shortlist of two and we don’t think this is helping us,” says Burrill.
And while Burrill says the move to have pressure wounds reported to the department is a good step, he thinks it should have been in place long ago.
He also wants to see an action plan put in place to deal with what happens once a pressure wound is reported to the department.
Story by Brittany Wentzell
@BrittWentzell
