Advocacy groups demand standards for long-term care
It was enough to bring tears to the eyes of veteran long-term care worker Heather Neiser.
She was overwhelmed with emotion as she recalled the frustration personal support workers face, failing to meet the basic needs of the vulnerable people in their care due to underfunding and inadequate staff levels.
“As a PSW, it’s heartbreaking not to have time to sit with a resident who’s distraught over the loss of a child, or toilet a resident when they ask and then not having the time to change them because it’s a two-person lift and there’s only one of me,” said Neiser, who dedicated more than 20 years to working on the front lines at long-term care homes before becoming the president of Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 1404.
“There’s no time for one-on-one care, no time for companionship or conversation. Our residents are neglected and treated like products on an assembly line.”
The problems that have led to the conditions both workers and residents face are only getting worse, Neiser said.
Neiser joined Niagara Health Coalition Chair Sue Hotte, Carol Dueck from the Network 4 Long Term Care Advocacy Committee, as well as Marg Newby and Marion Woodcock from Retired Teachers of Ontario Niagara during a media conference Tuesday morning held to discuss systemic issues that have led to the current “crisis” at long-term care homes across Ontario.
They urged people demand changes needed to fix the system.
Neiser said long-term care home residents are “deteriorating faster, falling more, becoming more incontinent and becoming more aggressive as their simplest needs are not met.”
She said the past provincial government have done nothing to address the escalating problems and lack of funding for long-term care homes.
Dueck, whose organization represents as many as 11,000 residents at 86 facilities in the Local Health Integration Network’s jurisdiction, said she applauds the provincial government’s initiative for looking at the whole health care industry, because the issues at long-term care homes and hospitals “are so intertwined.”
However, she said, long-term care homes need to have legislated standards of care to resolve many of the issues that are occurring.
The organization is asking people to write letters to Premier Doug Ford, Health Minister Christine Elliott and others urging them to support Bill 13 — a private members bill introduced in July by London-Fanshawe
MPP Teresa Armstrong, calling for an average of four hours of direct hands-on care per resident, per day.
The organization is also circulating a petition in support of the legislation, available for download from the organization’s website network4longtermcareadvocacy.com. “It’s unfortunate that the government who has a majority has to have a private member’s bill come forward to say what they absolutely have to do, which is to provide a standard level of care,” Dueck said.
She said although the government plans to create 15,000 longterm care beds in the next five years and 30,000 in the next 20, the government must also develop a model of care so that people working in those buildings can provide the best care possible.
“We need people to hear,” she said. “We need people to pick up the phone and call their MPP, send a letter or sign a petition.”