New law protects caregivers
Eight weeks of compassionate leave offered Albertans with gravely ill relatives
It was a cold March day last year that Arthur Peterson realized his wife needed round-the-clock care.
A month earlier, at age 52, Heather Peterson had been diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia, a condition related to Alzheimer’s, and her cognitive and physical abilities were deteriorating. Her speech had become almost unintelligible, her walking uncertain and off balance.
By then she was spending much of her time on the blue velvet couch in the living room of the west Edmonton bungalow they shared, watching birds flit by outside the big picture window or reading books borrowed from the nearby Jasper Place Library.
That cold March afternoon, Peterson received a call at work. A paramedic was on the other end.
“Your wife Heather’s had a fall,” the voice said.
She had a broken toot hand a few scrapes and bruises when she tripped on the sidewalk while walking home from the library. Peterson said he realized: “I needed to be home with Heather. And then that was it for work.”
A new provincial law that takes effect Saturday means Albertans won’t be forced to choose between caring for a gravely ill relative or quitting their jobs, as Peterson did. The Compassionate Care Leave Act will give Albertans eight weeks of job-protected leave to care for a dying loved one.
The law amends the Employment Standards Act so people who find themselves thrust into the role of caregiver can devote their time without fear of losing their job, seniority or pay level. Alberta became the last province to legislate compassionate care leave when the act was passed last spring.
The private member’s bill was sponsored by Progressive Conservative MLA Matt Jeneroux, who pushed for the law after encountering families in his constituency living the “sandwich generation,” with grandparents in the basement and kids running around upstairs.
They asked him what would happen if someone fell seriously ill and needed care at home. He researched it and realized there was nothing on the books that would protect their jobs.
“I wouldn’t want to have to make that sort of choice and this now allows you to be able to go to your employer, without fear of any sort of repercussion and knowing there’s legislation out there to help you do that,” Jeneroux said.
That pressure is one more people may have to deal with as the country’s population ages, said Anna Mann, executive director of the Alberta Caregivers Association.
Giving people the security to care for a dying relative at home can also relieve some of the burdens of the health system, she added.
“People want to be able to provide that care. It’s more affordable for the system and to do that employers have to be on side, and there needs to be some security there for families that want to do that.”
The Petersons had met 40 years earlier, when both were junior high students in Creston, B.C. They were married by 19 and soon made their life in Edmonton.
She enjoyed a successful career with Alberta Health Services IT department. The couple loved to travel, visiting countries all over the world, and would often spend weekends touring nearby towns on their motorcycle. At home, they passed time making intricate quilts for friends and family — she, with an eye for colours and shapes, handled all the piecing, and he added the stitching.
All of that changed when Heather was diagnosed in 2012 with Bell’s palsy, a form of facial paralysis that affects one nerve. The majority of people who get it recover. She didn’t.
“The Bell’s palsy was the push that got us started down the hill. We were already on the hill; we just didn’t know it. The frontotemporal dementia was there, but we didn’t know it,” Peterson said.
Peterson, a chaplain and counsellor, qualified for short-term disability leave and then used up three weeks of vacation so he could care for Heather. Home care, only able to send a worker for two-hour shifts, wasn’t an option.
In April 2013, his employer unwilling to reduce his hours to part-time, Peterson found himself with a difficult choice: Quit his job to care for his wife — whose health was rapidly declining with each day — or pay for round-the- clock care. He quit.
“There was no option. I had to look after Heather,” Peterson said.
Jennifer Hall, a 39-year-old landscaper, is in a different situation. Doctors discovered a tumour in her husband Curtis’s brain in September 2010.
At first, he stayed home on his own while she worked, but one day she arrived to find his back covered in dirt and realized he must have gone outside.
“He couldn’t explain to me how it got there, but I knew he must have been outside,” Hall said. “That’s when I said, OK, no more. He can’t be left alone.”
Hall was fortunate enough to qualify for anxiety leave from her job, and spent six months at home with Curtis, 43. He has since been moved to the Grey Nuns Hospital and she is back at work, but will have access to job-protected leave when necessary.
“When things come to a critical stage and Curtis needs me to be there, I’ll be able to use the compassionate care leave and I’ll be able to be there for him when he needs me the most,” she said. “I won’t have to worry about losing my job. Everything will be secure for me.”
The law gives Albertans access to eight weeks of compassionate care leave within a six-month period. To qualify, a doctor must issue a certificate saying the employee’s relative suffers from “a serious medical condition with a significant risk of death within 26 weeks.” The leave is unpaid, but employees can apply for employment insurance benefits.