Representatives with Mine Mill Local 598/Unifor will hold an information picket outside St. Gabriel's Villa in Chelmsford this afternoon calling for higher minimum staffing standards for nursing home residents.
The union is asking that residents receive a minimum of four hours of care each day.
Anne-Marie MacInnis, Mine Mill Local 598's president, has said patients were getting closer to 2.8 hours of care per day, according to bargaining meetings with management.
St. Joseph's Health Centre of Sudbury operates St. Gabriel's Villa, along with St. Joseph's Villa in Sudbury.
To increase the level of care it provides its residents the organization announced St. Gabriel's Villa would be able to hire hire 2.4 more full-time equivalent personal care assistants. St. Joseph's Villa will be able to hire an additional 2.8 full-time equivalents.
The new hires are thanks to an increase to St. Joseph's case mix index – a classification system used to determine the allocation of financial resources to long-term care homes across the province from the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care.
Mine Mill Local 598/Unifor also held an information session outside St. Joseph's Villa on July 25.