Ontario Must Address Long-Term Care Staffing Crisis As Cases Surge: Unions
During the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, Jennifer Cloutier, a personal support worker (PSW), lived in a trailer outside her long-term care home to prevent spreading the virus to her family.
Her job involved putting deceased residents into body bags. She worked up to 20 hours some days. From March 14, the day after Ontario closed schools, to April 26, she didn’t get a day off.
“To work through the pandemic was terrifying, was exhausting [and] was emotional,” Cloutier said through tears at a Monday press conference. “To go to work every day to see your residents die, is a horrible way to work.”
Her long-term care home sometimes had as few as three or four staff members for a 24-hour period, she said. Staff at the home had breakdowns, experienced depression and vomited in their cars and in the home’s locker room.
WATCH: Ford warns care homes to let staff access PPE. Story continues below.
“This is a sector that is in a crisis and the government needs to step up and get us adequate staffing [and] get us realistic ratios to keep these residents alive and healthy and [give them] the care that they deserve,” Cloutier said.
As increasing cases in Ontario point to a second wave of the deadly virus, PSWs and union leaders urged the province to take steps to improve staffing in long-term care homes at a joint press conference Monday morning.
In Ontario, 1,859 residents and eight staff members have died of COVID-19, according to provincial data.
Staffing study, private member’s bill offer next steps
Ontario released a staffing study in July that concluded the province must “urgently address the staffing crisis in long-term care.” The study was a response to the inquiry that investigated former nurse Elizabeth Wettlaufer murdering eight seniors.
It gave five recommendations, including to give more funding to increase the number of staff working in long-term care and to improve work conditions — including better compensation — to retain...
