Local health advocates are once again calling on the province to do more to protect residents in long term care.

The Ontario Health Coalition is holding an online protest today to demand more be done for what local chair Shirley Roebuck calls a province-wide issue.

“We want to bring the staffing crisis and COVID crisis in long term care home to our community,” Roebuck says. “To let our elected officials who are supposed to be representing us (know) that we need this long term care crisis fixed now.”

The Health Coalition has long been demanding increased hours of care and increased pay for PSWs and other long term care staff.

The province recently announced free tuition for anyone who wants to train as a PSW, but Roebuck says that’s still not good enough.

“The government has just announced training, more PSWs, that’s not going to do much good unless they mandate better working conditions and better pay in long term care. But I’m going to fight until the government fixes this problem, because it’s them that created it and it’s them that can fix it.”

Today’s virtual protest is being streamed live on Facebook from 11am-1pm, and will include long term care families and staff from across southwestern Ontario to help keep up the pressure on the government.