More staff, more money, better care.
Those are the demands being made by the Ontario Health Coalition as a shortage of PSW positions continues to affect long-term care facilities across the province.
A new report commissioned for the Ontario Health Coalition by Unifor includes input from round-table discussion across the province including personal support workers and other front-line staff, families, and long-term care advocates.
Chair of the local chapter of the Health Coalition, Shirley Roebuck says they are calling on the provincial government to mandate a minimum of four hours of hands-on care per day, per patient.
“We’re very happy that local communities are trying to create more PSW jobs,” Roebuck says. “But we believe that it has to take a government mandate to increase staffing and type of staffing in nursing homes before this problem will be settled.”
Unifor and the OHC are holding a series of news conferences across the province as they release the report, including a meeting in Chatham on Wednesday.
President of Unifor Local 127 Nicole Granger says PSWs feel neglected and overworked, which keeps people from getting into the industry in the first place.
“That job’s gotten a bad name in the public I feel because of the high injury rate because of the lack of time off, not being able to get vacation time, burnout, so many contributing factors that the colleges are even having a problem with enrollment.”
And while it feels like an endless cycle, Granger says more needs to be done to get new people into the workforce.
She says the key is more funding tied to hands-on care so residents can be properly looked after.
