Dear Editor,
I am calling on the people of Saskatchewan to help address a serious long-term care (LTC) safety gap that affects residents across every constituency of our great province.
I recently created a petition calling for a critical amendment to Saskatchewan’s LTC standards.
It asks that all care staff who provide care to a resident must read and understand that resident’s current care plan, not only “have access” to it, as the current standard requires. Access does not equal reading.
Without that requirement, resident care cannot consistently align with care plans like it is supposed to, especially with staff turnover, coverage from elsewhere, or people returning from leave.
These factors are predictable and common to work around.
This gap places many residents, particularly those who cannot self-advocate, at risk of harm or even death.
If you or a loved one were in LTC, would you accept care from staff who had not read the care plan? What if you or they could not speak up and care was incorrect?
This is a systemic, province-wide issue that demands urgent attention and public awareness.
The petition can be read and signed at change.org/protectLTCresidents.
Thank you for your time and for caring about the safety and dignity of residents in our province’s LTC, and for helping to better support LTC staff. Stronger standards also give LTC workers’ unions more leverage for better staffing and working conditions.
Michael Murphy
Born and raised in
Regina, Saskatchewan