The B.C. NDP government has taken its first significant step to close the wide and persistent gap between the reality of basic support for seniors in residential care and the province91裸聊视频檚 target.

Officially, that target is an average 3.36 hours of personal care per patient, per day. In practical terms, that means getting two baths a week instead of one, or being escorted with a walker to the dining room instead of being whisked there in a wheelchair by an overworked employee.

In human terms, it means an isolated, lonely senior is not just cleaner and more comfortable, he or she gets a few more minutes of personal contact to relieve the tedium of confinement and the junk of daytime TV.

B.C.91裸聊视频檚 Seniors Advocate, Isobel Mackenzie, reported last week that as of March 2017, that standard was being met in 15 per cent of publicly funded care homes. That91裸聊视频檚 up from nine-per-cent compliance the previous year, based on an annual survey of the 293 public and contracted care homes across the province.

The first move was communicated to facility operators in conference calls last week, and will be confirmed in the NDP government budget on Feb. 20. Authorities will be funded to increase their casual and part-time care aide positions to full time as of April 1.

Health Minister Adrian Dix cautions that this is at best a partial solution, even with half of the current workforce in casual and part-time positions. Not all will accept full-time work.

91裸聊视频淭o reach the 3.36 [hours target], we91裸聊视频檙e told that it will require 900 net new care aides, in a sector where more than a quarter of care aides are over 55,91裸聊视频� Dix told me. 91裸聊视频淪o there would be considerable effort just to stay where we are now, and this is going to require a significant number of new care aides.91裸聊视频�

Daniel Fontaine, CEO of the B.C. Care Providers Association, agrees: 91裸聊视频淢oving from casual to full-time is not going to do it.91裸聊视频�

Fontaine has been pushing to expand dual-credit high school courses to get more young people into senior care as a first job, with virtually guaranteed employment even in rural and remote communities. These high school spaces are now mainly focused on male-dominated skilled trades, while popular culture bombards teens with the allure of high-tech careers.

At a residential care conference in Surrey Jan. 26, Dix announced new post-secondary training spaces for care aides. Unfortunately, the government is also embarking on an aggressive expansion of child care, and the labour pool for that is largely the same people.

Fontaine says he91裸聊视频檚 hearing regularly from private colleges around B.C. that have vacant health care assistant training spaces now. The fastest solution would be to fill those spaces with immigrants eager to work, but there91裸聊视频檚 a problem. Federal immigration authorities won91裸聊视频檛 issue work permits unless students train at a public college. So the province wastes money on duplicate public spaces due to Ottawa91裸聊视频檚 arbitrary rules.

And of course the shortage of young workers mirrors the vast growth in seniors as baby boomers retire. There are currently 28,000 seniors in publicly funded residential care in B.C., out of an estimated 850,000 people over 65. Total senior population is projected to reach 1.4 million over the next 15 years.

91裸聊视频淏ut over 75, that number is going to increase by two and a half times in the next 20 years,91裸聊视频� Dix said.

Progress is slowly being made, thanks to the work of the Seniors Advocate91裸聊视频檚 office to report this situation to the public and to governments.

Tom Fletcher is B.C. legislature reporter and columnist for Black Press. Email: tfletcher@blackpress.ca