Premier Brad Wall promises to look at staffing ratios in care homes

Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall is promising to look at staffing ratios at long-term care homes in Saskatchewan, in time for the next provincial budget expected in the spring.

Wall said Monday the province has put more money and more workers in to long-term care homes, but added the government will take a few months and to make sure homes have the right mix of front-line workers and administrators.

The opposition has spent weeks hammering the government over seniors' care.

Wall insisted the government has added more workers in long-term care but he is open to making adjustments.

"And yet if they're not, if it's not availing better results for residents, for patients, then we have to ask ourselves if that ratio is right and we're going to do that over the coming months before budget time," he said.

Issues relating to long-term care have been highlighted frequently as many people have shared their experiences.

On Monday, the daughter of a woman who died last year in a Saskatoon care home was at the Legislature in Regina to tell her story.

Tammy Skilliter said her mother, Fern Chingos, suffered a fatal reaction to an antibiotic. The woman, 65, was known to have an allergy to the medication. She died shortly after receiving the antibiotic and Skilliter said no one checked on her condition, until it was too late.

"She passed away - according to the coroner's report - within an hour to two hours," Skilliter said. "If maybe somebody would have actually followed policy or procedure and checked her on the half hour, she might be alive. They might have been able to see that she was going in to severe anaphylactic shock."

Skilliter was moved to share her story after hearing other cases highlighted in recent weeks. She said she wants people to know that stories about understaffed long-term care homes are not isolated incidents.