Public Health Ontario Data Reveals Devastating Pandemic Effects for Health Care Workers
- Unifor -
Provincial COVID-19 data released by Public Health
Ontario shows the cost of years of ignoring health workers' demands,
and the risks of continued inaction.[1]
Health care workers were severely overrepresented in the
data, representing more than 17 per cent of all cases, with 5,800
positive cases and 13 deaths between January 15, 2020 to June 22, 2020.
"Ontario's healthcare system is a dangerous place to
work, far beyond what is reasonable," said Jerry Dias, Unifor National
President. "The risk to the health of workers across the system, and
specifically in long-term care, can be fixed if the Ford Government
makes the systemic changes that workers have demanded for years."
More than 38 per cent of COVID-19 cases among health
care workers are workers in the long-term care sector. While the data
indicates only 302 cases were personal support workers, Public Health
Ontario only started collecting data on that classification on May 29,
2020, months after the pandemic began. Many other classifications of
workers who work in close proximity of COVID-19 patients, like porters,
housekeepers, technicians and technologists, and unit clerks are not
tracked at all, referred to only as "unspecified HCW occupation."
"Receiving this data months into the pandemic while
there is still no comprehensive plan from the government to repair our
broken health care sector is an insult to frontline workers whom the
Premier has repeatedly called heroes," said Naureen Rizvi, Unifor
Ontario Regional Director. "We have known for years that Ontario has a
long-term
care staffing crisis, and that cuts have left health care services
over-crowded and at risk. This data shows the devastating effects of
those choices."
Recent announcements from the Ontario Government have
failed to provide any real solutions for the issues raised by frontline
workers, including those in the Unifor and Ontario Health
Coalition December 2019 report Caring in Crisis: Ontario's Long-Term
Care PSW Shortage.[2]
Instead, the Ford Government continued to push most of
the public money for long-term care beds to for-profit operators,
hasn't addressed the staffing shortage, but has imposed a cap wage of
1 per cent across the broader public service, and is extending the
emergency orders for health care workers for up to a full year under
Bill 195.
"Premier Ford must improve safety, wages and all working
conditions in long-term care now, to bring workers back to the sector,"
continued Dias. "Instead, his government is making an already difficult
job harder with Bill 195 set to wreak havoc on frontline workers'
schedules, vacation and even their ability to earn their pre-pandemic
wages
as it pertains to having more than one workplace."
Adding insult to injury, pandemic pay for frontline
health care workers is scheduled to end in August. Many have yet to
receive the pay promised almost three months ago, and many more are
excluded altogether.[3]
"Nothing that is happening right now leads me to believe
that we are at all prepared for a second wave of this pandemic," said
Dias. "Now is the time to rebuild Ontario's public health care system.
Unifor, and Ontario's health care workers are fully prepared to
participate in implementing the real solutions that patients and
workers need."
Notes
1. View the data here.
2. View the report here.
3. See "Pandemic Pay for Unifor Health Care Workers."
This article was published in
Number 53 - August 6, 2020
Article Link:
Public Health Ontario Data Reveals Devastating Pandemic Effects for Health Care Workers - Unifor
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
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