Province not tracking coronavirus cases among PSWs,

One-sixth of cases are health-care workers and this is expected to rise

While doctors and nurses in Ontario have fallen ill with COVID-19, the vast majority of health-care staff affected are personal support workers in nursing and retirement homes listed only as “other” in newly released provincial data.

This glaring omission — not recording the specific jobs of personal support workers most at risk in the pandemic — is something Ontario said Friday it is moving to rectify because that knowledge will help fight the pandemic. A spokesperson for Public Health Ontario said “there is great interest” in collecting this information.

Meanwhile, the overall number of infections in Ontario health-care workers continues to rise, both in sheer numbers and as a proportion of known infections. As of Friday, 3,722 or about one in six of the known 21,922 COVID-19 infections were health-care workers. It was one in seven two weeks ago. It is not known how much those numbers are affected by decisions on who to test, and health-care workers in nursing homes have been a recent priority. As of Friday, infected health-care workers were 16.98 per cent of total known infections in Ontario. From Thursday to Friday, the province reported 115 more health-care worker infections. In total, there were 428 new known infected people, including the 115 health-care workers.

The Toronto Star has found that public health units in Ontario have been slow to collect and disseminate information that would help the public understand which jobs were at the highest risk in the pandemic.

That’s why people such as Sharleen Stewart, whose SEIU health-care union represents many front-line staff, is asking the province to call a public inquiry into how Ontario has dealt with the pandemic.

“It’s a gong show,” said Stewart, president of a union with 60,000 members, half of them working in long-term-care homes. “That’s why we need a public inquiry by an outside source.” Stewart said the province has resisted calls for an inquiry. The province has said there will be a “review” — but on what terms and when is not decided. Two months ago, Toronto Public Health, following questions from the Star, released the first information on infected health-care workers, revealing that 13 health-care workers had tested positive. At the time, Toronto Public Health would only say that “health-care worker” included doctors, nurses and long-term-care workers. The form used by contact tracers did not break down the term into specific job categories.

Had they, the province might have had a better handle on the nursing home outbreaks that were then developing. Personal support workers (PSWs) perform functions that put them in constant contact in homes with elderly residents. Workers interviewed by the Star say they did not always receive the correct protective masks (or any masks at all), or other equipment.

PSWs assist residents with bathing, in the bathroom, during meals or sitting and provide comfort to a resident, holding their hand. All of these tasks put them in close contact with residents. The biggest outbreaks in Ontario have been in long-term care.

This week, the Star asked the health ministry what type of job the now 3,722 (as of Thursday) infected health-care workers held.

A spokesperson for Minister Christine Elliott passed the request to Public Health Ontario. It turns out that, despite all of the contact tracing during the outbreak, it is only recently that public health units are recording specific job information in a provincial database called iPHIS (integrated Public Health Information System). Personal support worker is not a category on the form that leads to the iPHIS database.

Here is the breakdown in iPHIS of the 3,722 infected health-care workers: doctor (82), nurse (753), laboratory worker (41), first responder (69) and “other healthcare worker/ unknown type (2,887).

Public Health Ontario has no way to break down the “other” category, though it hopes to in the future. That’s because only some public health units in the province record the jobs of people infected. As to what “other” is made up of, it includes personal support workers, homecare workers, cleaners in nursing homes and retirement homes, clerks in those institutions and also jobs such as respiratory therapists.

As with many data-related issues in Ontario’s fight against the pandemic, there is no onestop-shopping answer to understand the limited data that is being released. Separately, the province has stated that more than half — 1,909 — of the 3,722 infected health-care workers have jobs in either nursing or retirement homes. Also, the province has said that 336 infected health-care workers had jobs in hospitals.

For SEIU’s Stewart, this is proof of what she has being saying all along, as far back as midMarch when she and other union leaders spoke to health ministry officials.

Will the province begin tracking the specific job categories?

Janet Wong, a spokesperson for Public Health Ontario, said yes.

“There is great interest in this. There are discussions happening to add more categories like “personal support worker” and others under the broader health-care worker field. We just don’t have a date on when they may be implemented. I understand that (Public Health Ontario) has been talking with the Ministry of Health as well as health units about this,” said Wong.

SEIU’s Stewart said it is upsetting that, at the same time as people are celebrating PSWs as “front-line heroes,” they are still the lowest-paid part of the health system.

The role of a PSW is a “heavy job,” Stewart said.

“They are working with older residents, mobility is an issue, they are often helping someone who might have dementia and is not completely understanding what the worker is trying to do,” Stewart added.

“Whether it is a personal care worker or a doctor, we have to know who is sick. Why hide the numbers?”

Sharleen Stewart, whose SEIU health-care union represents many front-line staff, is calling for a public inquiry