N.S. to spend $57M to add staff and beds to long-term care

Nova Scotia's PC government has laid out $57 million in spending for long-term care over the next 2½ years that is meant to alleviate long wait times for beds and long-standing staff shortages.

Premier Tim Houston announced the plan Wednesday at the Ivany Campus of the Nova Scotia Community College, one of the sites that offers training for continuing care assistants. CCAs make up the bulk of the long-term care workforce and are in high demand.

"Our vision for the future is two-fold — a modern system that meets the needs of seniors and a skilled workforce to provide the care and support that seniors need. These investments will help us do that," Houston said in a news release.

Making up the largest share of the new plan is $22 million to cover 100 per cent of tuition costs for about 2,200 students to take the CCA program over the next two years. New seats are not being created; provincial officials said there is capacity in programs across the province.

CCA training is available at 11 NSCC locations and five private community colleges.

The province has created a new "work and learn" curriculum that will allow students to study three days a week and work for two days, starting 28 days after the program begins. One college in Cape Breton has already started offering the program and the province is hoping more colleges will take it up.

The province expects students in the new program to be in the workforce starting in February.

Some of the other spending that makes up the $57 million includes:

Another $13.8 million will go toward adding long-term care beds over the next 2½ years. That includes:

The PCs promised during the summer election they would build 2,500 new long-term care beds over the next three year and said Wednesday that promise still stands. The proposed converted beds are not counted toward that total.