Nickel Belt MPP and official health-care critic France Gélinas is sounding alarm bells because there is a shortage of qualified health-care workers in the home-care industry in Ontario.
She said it is causing hardship for ordinary people who need medical help in their own homes.
Gélinas raised her concern this week in the Ontario legislature, where she spoke about the most recent statistics from the Ontario Community Support Association.
"The Ontario Community Support Association released the latest stats: 26 per cent of nurse and 14 per cent of PSW positions in home and community care are vacant. In my community that means that a young lady with a severe infection — she lives 40 minutes away from the hospital and does not drive — must find a ride to the hospital three times a day for the next 14 days because they cannot find a nurse to come to her house," Gélinas told the legislature Tuesday.
Gélinas was speaking about a woman from Whitefish, who is partially blind and has several amputations. She said the woman was supposed to be getting home care daily. In December the woman was getting home care for two or three days a week, said Gélinas.
"Now she goes five days at a time with no help at all," she added.
Gélinas asked why the for-profit home care companies can continue to enjoy government contracts "while failing to deliver" on those contracts.
Ontario Health Minister Christine Elliott responded that an active consultation is currently underway with home-care partners "to understand what we need to do to change the system as we work to bring home and community care into the local Ontario health teams to perform the care that is appropriate and relevant in each of our communities."
Elliott said it was part of the provincial Connecting People to Home and Community Care Act, which was passed almost two years ago.
Elliott said it was an effort to bring outdated home-care legislation into more modern times.
Gélinas responded to Elliott that the reason why so many health-care jobs are vacant is because the private home-care companies "would rather increase their profit than pay home-care workers a living wage.”
Gélinas quoted a physician’s report saying the home-care system was in the midst of a human resources crisis as long as five years ago.
She also made reference to a report that said Ontario would be better off by doing away with for-profit home care and by mandating equal pay for all nurses and personal support workers (PSWs), regardless of their place of employment, which she said is done in some Atlantic provinces and British Columbia.
In response to Gélinas, minister Elliott reiterated that the province is working to modernize home care. Elliott disagreed with Gélinas' reasoning and said the province has invested more than $270 million in additional funding in the past two fiscal years into home and community care.
Elliott said the province is "actively working" on the health human resource challenges across Ontario, which includes hospitals and long-term care homes as well as homecare situations.
Elliott also said Ontario has several initiatives underway to increase training and hiring of personal support workers and for nurses as well.
She added that the province has also introduced programs to encourage "laddering,” a process where qualified PSWs can opt for additional education to become Registered Practical Nurses or Registered Nurses.
