Health workers concerned about home-care patients
Personal support workers in the Peterborough area are voicing concerns when it comes to the lack of workers choosing home-care jobs over long-term care facility jobs.
A new provincial rule, aimed at preventing the spread of COVID-19 by having workers working in no more than one facility, has the potential to affect a lot of the elderly living at home, said Katie Barr, a personal support worker for Nightingale Nursing Registry and physiotherapy assistant at Ross Memorial Hospital in Lindsay.
On April 17, the Ontario government issued an emergency order preventing health-care workers from working in multiple homes and agencies in hopes of slowing the spread of COVID-19.
Barr said she chose to stay at her hospital job as a physiotherapist. “At the end of the day, I had to choose the job that paid more per month and per hour. I had to choose the hospital,” she said.
Health-care workers such as
Barr are torn between choosing the job or the people. In the end, it leaves them feeling torn up inside.
“I will just say that I am not sleeping all that well, that’s for sure,” she said.
DeeDee Burke, a personal support worker in Peterborough, said hours could be impacted in coming weeks due to clients cancelling their services because of fears of catching the coronavirus.
“We have home-care workers that work in home care and work in a retirement home,” Burke said. “If you ask them which one, they are going to go to the one where they will make the most money.”
Burke said she is not complaining at all, as it gives her plenty of work to do in the community. But it will mean she and her co-workers will be left burnt out and in need of rest when this is over, she said.
Aja Bax, manager of collaborative care at Community Care Peterborough, said the organization isn’t in the same position as others.
The agency’s personal support workers normally provide in-home post-hospital care and accompany clients to appointments, she said, but since the pandemic began those activities have been limited, so PSWs are offering alternative services.
“They are providing meals on wheels delivery and grocery shopping and deliveries,” Bax said. “Grocery shopping is free, but we are paying our PSWs to do it instead of having volunteers, because most of our volunteers are staying safe at home right now.”