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COVID-19 exposed 'critical issues' in LTC: Ontario NDP says action needed now

Care homes need more and better-paid staff, more inspections
long term care
(Supplied)

Ontario should be taking action now to prevent problems in long-term care homes that might happen in the foreseeable future -- such as a possible new wave of coronavirus, said Ontario NDP leader Andrea Horwath.

She spoke out Tuesday on the need to increase staff at long-term care homes before a possible second wave of COVID-19.

A news release from Horwath's office said the call to action comes after Premier Doug Ford introduced so-called recovery legislation that completely ignored critical issues in long-term care, like quality of care and staff wages. To date, said the Horwath release,  COVID-19 has claimed the lives of more than 1,830 residents and staff in long-term care in Ontario, and infected thousands more.

“Long-term care workers like PSWs were run off their feet before the pandemic struck,” said Horwath. “Now, as hospital resources and the military leave, they’re going to be even more short-handed as they struggle to provide seniors with the care they want to," said Horwath at a press conference on Tuesday.

She said not having enough staff in nursing homes means the residents do not get the basic hands-on care they need, like help with daily hygiene, or even help eating and drinking.

Horwath was joined at the press conference by Lisa Pattison, who works as a dietary aide at Grace Villa in Hamilton. While Pattison is fortunate to work in a home that has weathered the pandemic better than others, COVID-19 has pulled back the curtain on problems in long-term care that she and others in the industry have been sounding the alarm about for years, like chronic understaffing, said the news release.

“After the Liberals badly neglected long-term care for 15 long years, Doug Ford targeted the sector for cuts, including funding meant to flow to wages,” said Horwath. “It’s pretty insulting for Mr. Ford to call health-care workers heroes and leave them to scrape by on little more than minimum wage, without benefits. And that’s no way to hire and keep the people we so badly need in long-term care homes.”

As part of her call to action, Horwath called on the Ford government to take the following steps:

 

  • Create a hiring and retention fund to bring thousands of new PSWs into long-term care.
  • Establish a minimum staffing requirement to ensure seniors get at least four hours of hands on care per day.
  • Raise wages for all PSWs.
  • Mandate that health-care workers, including PSWs, are offered full-time jobs with benefits so they don’t have to work three different part-time jobs.
  • Guarantee a bare minimum of one comprehensive resident quality inspection per year – not just incident or complaint checks.
  • Require air conditioning in every resident room.

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