Opposition critics question cuts to long-term care homes in Nova Scotia

Three long-term care homes are “working with” Nova Scotia’s Health Department to meet a required one-per-cent budget cut, the deputy health minister told a legislature committee Wednesday.

READ MORE: Nova Scotia nursing homes sound the alarm on Liberal budget cuts

Dr. Peter Vaughan said an $8.2-million provincial funding cut over two years will affect 103 out of 134 long-term care facilities, most of them nursing homes for the extremely aged.

“We appreciate not all, especially smaller, facilities have been able to meet the challenge of the one per cent easily. … We’re listening to what the sector is saying and we’re working with them as best we can,” he told the public accounts committee.

“I think there’s three homes we’ve been working to try and look what we can do with them,” he said.

WATCH: Long-term care home feeling the pinch of government cuts

1:42 Long-term care home feeling the pinch of government cuts

Tim Houston, a Progressive Conservative critic, said he’s worried about homes that are having difficulty meeting the one per cent cuts without harming services.

“They’re trying to care for vulnerable Nova Scotians,” he said.

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Dave Wilson, an NDP member of the committee, said during the hearing he has difficulty understanding why the cutbacks had to be passed on to the front-line caregivers already struggling to meet needs.

Vaughan said the cuts depended on which homes had contracts with the province that permit budget reductions.

He also said simply adding more staff won’t solve some of the issues of care at the long-term homes, including the auditor general’s concerns over the number of inspectors.

“Nobody likes a one per cent reduction … That’s what change is. Change is difficult … Yes, there are those who don’t want to reduce and those who would like to see us back away from that. We haven’t backed away from that.”