{"id":14705,"date":"2020-10-09T12:42:31","date_gmt":"2020-10-09T16:42:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca\/?p=14705"},"modified":"2020-10-19T12:44:27","modified_gmt":"2020-10-19T16:44:27","slug":"rallies-calling-on-ford-to-make-changes-to-long-term-care-now-4-photos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca\/index.php\/rallies-calling-on-ford-to-make-changes-to-long-term-care-now-4-photos\/","title":{"rendered":"Rallies calling on Ford to make changes to long-term care now (4 photos)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

(October 8, 2020)<\/p>\n

By: Doug Diaczuk, Thunder Bay News<\/p>\n

THUNDER BAY – For years health coalitions, unions, and personal support workers have been calling on the provincial government to address issues in long-term care, and with the COVID-19 pandemic claiming nearly 2,000 lives, those calls continue to get louder.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are here today to join 23 other local coalitions across the province and the Ontario Health Coalition to tell Doug Ford that his response to the deaths of 1,935 residents, nine staff, and two family members is absolutely insufficient,\u201d said Jules Tupker, co-chair of the Thunder Bay Health Coalition. \u201cHe\u2019s done absolutely nothing to address the issues in long-term care.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rallies were held in cities across the province on Thursday, including Mini-Queen\u2019s Park in Thunder Bay, calling on the Ford government to provide more incentives for PSWs to work in long-term care.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s just not enough staff. The staff are not there,\u201d Tupker said. \u201cThey don\u2019t have enough time to do the job they want to do. Staff in long term are passionate and compassionate people, they want to help the people in long-term care, they just don\u2019t have the time. That\u2019s always been a problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tupker added the provincial government needs to institute a minimum of four hours of care per resident, per day in order to allow the workers to do the job they were hired to do.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn other words, to create a home for the residents in long-term care and they can\u2019t do that now because there\u2019s just not enough time for them to do that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Lina Moore, a personal support worker in Thunder Bay, said she knows the importance of the work PSWs do in long-term care and need of four hours of care at the bedside. She said she comes home every day after a shift exhausted from trying to care for so many residents with not enough time.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not a very good feeling to go home and I tell my family that I don\u2019t think I did the best job I could have done if I had the tools and if I had the staff,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s an awful feeling. It breaks my heart.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been after the government for over 10 years that this is happening, and now we are in a pandemic and it\u2019s just gotten worse. There is not enough staff on the floor to take care of the residents and their needs every day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Long-term care homes in the province were hit particularly hard during the COVID-19 pandemic last spring, with the majority of more than 1,900 deaths happening in private, for profit facilities.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want Doug Ford to start moving toward\u00a0making those homes public,\u201d Tupker said.<\/p>\n

But the issues affecting long-term care all long-term care homes continues to be staffing shortages, which Tupker said is due in part to a lack of incentives for people to enter and stay in the profession.<\/p>\n

The Ford government recently implemented a $3 wage increase for PSWs in long-term care, but Tupker said that is a short-term solution.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s the incentive to go back to school and take a PSW course when I know my wages are not going to $24 an hour, they are going to be $21 an hour and I don\u2019t have enough time to do the job properly. It\u2019s a joke,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an incentive for the people who are still there to say please stay, because we can\u2019t afford to lose any more people.\u201d<\/p>\n

And with the province seeing surges in COVID-19 cases again, the Health Coalition is worried long-term care homes will once again be vulnerable to outbreaks and more lives will be lost, which is why action needs to be taken now.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope the government can hear us and say, let\u2019s do something,\u201d Moore said. \u201cIt\u2019s only going to get worse. What frightens me is COVID, the second wave, we can\u2019t lose any more lives.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Click here for original article<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(October 8, 2020) By: Doug Diaczuk, Thunder Bay News THUNDER BAY – For years health coalitions, unions, and personal support workers have been calling on the provincial government to address issues in long-term care, and with the COVID-19 pandemic claiming nearly 2,000 lives, those calls continue to get louder. \u201cWe are here today to join […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ohc-in-the-news"],"yoast_head":"\nRallies calling on Ford to make changes to long-term care now (4 photos) - Ontario Health Coalition<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"(October 8, 2020) By: Doug Diaczuk, Thunder Bay News THUNDER BAY - For years health coalitions, unions, and personal support workers have been calling on\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca\/index.php\/rallies-calling-on-ford-to-make-changes-to-long-term-care-now-4-photos\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Rallies calling on Ford to make changes to long-term care now (4 photos) - 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