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Defend the Rights of Workers -- Defend the Rights of All! Ontario Council of Hospital Unions Calls for Government Action to Save Lives
Orchard Villa long-term care and retirement home in Pickering, where, as of April 29, 49 residents have died and 131 of the 233 residents tested positive, is one of the homes. Altamount Care Community in Scarborough, Eatonville Care Centre in Etobicoke, Hawthorne Place in North York and Holland Christian Homes' Grace Manor in Brampton are the other facilities. The LTC Minister's "solution" still amounts to a COVID-19 death sentence for many residents living in long-term care homes. And going forward, it does nothing to address the staff shortage in LTC facilities that is the result of the neo-liberal anti-social agenda of successive Ontario governments, including his own. The Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Ontario, which represents many of the LTC front line health care workers in Ontario, responded to the government announcement to deploy the military the day it was made. "Once an outbreak takes hold, all the other residents are extremely vulnerable to this virus. The requirements that staff move from room to room wearing the same mask and gown for their entire shift also creates a glaring weakness in the infection control strategy," says Candace Rennick, Secretary-Treasurer of CUPE Ontario. "The solution is not to pour loaned military and hospital staff into long-term care to treat the COVID-19 positive residents, it is to remove residents, so that the virus does not spread within the home."
As of April 23, Ontario hospitals are operating at below 70 per cent capacity; 516 Ontario long-term care residents have died of COVID-19 and there were 2,191 cases in 135 homes. "Only a stubborn resistance to providing long-term care residents with access to hospitalization is standing in the way," Hurley said. (Photos: WF, CUPE Ontario)
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On April 24, the
Ontario government announced that Canadian Armed Forces personnel would
be deployed to five long-term care (LTC) homes hardest hit by the
COVID-19 pandemic. Long-Term Care Minister Merrilee Fullerton said the
five homes that were chosen for military support have serious staffing
shortages.
The situation
also calls for aggressive testing of all residents and staff in
long-term care facilities, something CUPE has consistently called for.
"This is a key element in turning the dire situation in care homes
across Ontario around," says Michael Hurley, the President of CUPE's
Ontario Council of Hospital Unions. "We need to test, identify and
relocate. Our hospitals have the capacity now to receive these
residents and can offer a higher level of infection control, nursing
care and access to a wide range of medical specialties."