Editor’s note: The following is an open letter to the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care, physicians and all levels of government.
I am a personal support worker. I have been for 10 years. Unless you have ever been in this position, you would not understand the complexities of this position.
We are not just an employee that feeds, bathes, and cleans the elderly as they live out their last days. We become their family, their friend and trusted companion.
Sadly, we are often the only people they get to see. They tell us their lives, their fears, their hopes, sometimes even things they don’t tell their children because they don’t want to worry them.
It is our role to help them be as independent as they can be, making them still feel valuable and like a person.
Through the years, as we see more and more cutbacks, we have less and less time to help our residents. They end up being hurried, or all independence taken away for lack of time. Depression increases, behaviours increase, medication increases, falls increase, deaths increase as a result.
We become a factory, processing elderly through tasks that have to be completed and charted. They are now a number and a product.
What have we become?
So, we continue to lose PSWs because we're burnt out, we’re discouraged at what we see, what policies have made us become. We don’t make much money for the amount of physical and emotional work we do, so some choose to leave.
Then we are in a care crisis, but still no help arrives. I was part of the last negotiations for our home, as well as the last two contracts. There were clawbacks and concessions, and we hoped for a better outcome each year, only to be disappointed.
Then comes COVID-19.
These PSWs that were already burnt out now face even more demands. We are happy to step up, because our residents are also our family. We see them suffer, we see some die without family by their side. We cry, we support each other, we keep working.
We become an even stronger team. All of us. Housekeeping, laundry, dietary, everyone.
Some of my coworkers have left their home and children to keep them safe while they battle this beast. Some are working six to seven days a week, 10 to 16 hours a day. Why? Because these residents need us, these residents are not just a product to be processed. We love them, we care for them.
Please, when this pandemic is over, don’t forget these things. These residents are people who deserve to be treated with dignity, compassion and time. There needs to be a better resident-to-care worker ratio. For the sake of the resident and the PSW.
As for the pandemic, I contracted COVID-19 at the end of March.
When I first was contacted by the health unit, we were told 14 days quarantine and then two negative tests before returning to work. When more and more health-care workers got infected, they changed it to 14 days and no symptoms before returning to work, where you get swabbed by your employer.
Every one of us that was infected around the same time tested positive on our first swab after returning to work. We were instructed to keep working with PPE. When the health unit came in to swab the remaining residents, they were in full suits with respirators. We, the ones working with COVID-19 residents, are told surgical masks and shields are all we require. So why does one group of medical staff receive such extreme PPE, while the medical staff that works directly with COVID-19 patients who cough on us, grab us, and require very close contact to give care only require a surgical mask and shield?
Sometimes, I feel like we are at war, and we are on the front lines with water guns.
I am now off work again with new COVID-19 symptoms, having tested positive again.
I have to wonder, did I infect any of my residents? Will they die because of me? Will I have to watch them die because of me? Did I infect my coworkers?
When we were told to return to work, and then tested positive on our first swab after returning, we were told to isolate but work with PPE. When I sent an email to ask for clarification, I was given some information and websites to look at. Did you know there is a section on workplace isolation? Well there is. We are required not to take our breaks in the staff room or any common areas. Not one of us was told to do this, and I have seen some of these workers in the staff room where we don’t wear PPE.
When I came back, I took my breaks in my car for fear of infecting my coworkers.
I just want you to be aware of what is happening. There’s a push to bring us back with the huge shortage of PSWs and nurses(and I so wanted to come back to fight), but at what cost? Does bringing back workers before they have two consecutive negative swabs really help? Did we infect people coming back? Did we harm ourselves coming back too soon as some of us are off again? I have to wonder as I laid in bed last night being short of breath just talking with my husband.
You have a huge task! I pray that you make the right decisions. I realize there is no easy solution, but we have to look ahead to the results of our decisions and actions, not just make decisions on how to fix the moment.
Cheri Sorenson, Belle River, Ont.