Don’t blame the workers
Ontario passed yet another grim milestone in the pandemic this week: More than 3,000 residents in long-term-care homes have died of COVID-19.
When asked about the obvious failure of his “iron ring” of protection, Premier Doug Ford opted to take the low road and blamed health-care workers for bringing the virus into homes.
“It’s not coming in through the walls and the ceiling. Inadvertently through the great front-line health-care workers, our caregivers, it’s coming in,” Ford said.
“If you want to stop this, go to root causes,” he added. That part is a very good idea.
But the way to do it is not by trying to shift blame to the underpaid and badly overworked staff in these homes, who face daily COVID dangers both at work and in their neighbourhoods. There’s a reason there are some 1,300 long-termcare staff who are currently COVID-19-positive. Ten of their coworkers have already died.
Ford should focus on what his government can and should do to address the way the virus is brought into these homes. The province sets all the rules and regulations for long-termcare providers; it’s in charge of inspections; and it funds the entire system. So if there’s a problem — and there certainly is — that’s on the government. “Test as much as possible,” Ford said. “That’s how we’re going to capture it.”
More frequent testing is a good idea, but, as usual, his government is setting out new requirements without providing the support homes need to make it happen.
For the most part, long-term-care workers and essential caregivers need to have a COVID lab test once a week. But the government now wants them to add on to that with rapid tests conducted more often.
Someone has to administer those tests — a nurse, doctor or pharmacist, for example — and care homes are desperately short of that kind of help. Everyone is already run off their feet trying to keep up with the needs of residents. So if the province thinks more testing in homes will save lives, it must provide funding and staff to make it possible for homes to comply.
The government can further reduce the risk of COVID getting into homes by ending the extensive use of temp agency workers in long-term care.
Last April, the government prohibited staff from working in more than one long-term-care home in an effort to slow the spread of the virus. But, like so many of the Ford government’s fixes, it turned out to be a half measure.
The government has continued to allow temp workers to take shifts in multiple facilities to ensure “a steady supply of staff.”
A far better way to ensure that is by providing full-time jobs with decent pay, benefits and working conditions.
In December, the government announced it would “temporarily enhance wages” by $3 an hour for “overworked and underpaid” personal support workers in long-term-care homes.
That pay hike is slated to end in March, which makes little sense. Being overworked and underpaid is not a temporary condition brought on by COVID-19. All the pandemic has done is make it impossible to ignore.
The Ford government also needs to come around to seeing the value of provincially mandated sick leave to ensure lowpaid workers — including some in care homes — can stay home when they’re sick or think they might be.
Public health officials across the province — including some of Ford’s top advisers — have underlined the importance of paid sick days. They say provincial lockdown measures won’t be successful in stopping the spread of the virus without that kind of support.
Ford likes to say “everything is on the table.” He routinely tells Ontarians his government will “do whatever it takes” to fight the pandemic.
When it comes to long-term care, despite the tragic and ever-rising death toll, the Ford government still isn’t living up to those promises.