The shortage of home care workers in Manitoba has prompted the WRHA to pledge to add 300 new staff via free, four-week training and no formal education requirements.

A recruitment drive and subsidized training program is underway, with plans to add 200 staff to the sector workforce by June, and an additional 100 afterward.

On Monday, classes began for the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority’s second intake of its uncertified home care attendants training program.

One of its students, Elizabeth Vokey, said she’s wanted to become a home care worker, but hadn’t previously been able to take time off and go back to school.

The former home support worker said she was nervous about returning to classes as an older student and the expense of upgrading her education was a major barrier. The subsidized training makes all the difference, she told reporters during a news conference organized by the WRHA.

“I am super excited to be accepted into this program. It’s what our community needs, it’s what the public wants, and I’m just honoured that our government has decided to invest in us to do this job.”

WRHA home care program is currently running at least 300 workers short, with a vacancy rate of 21 per cent for its workforce of between 1,200 to 1,600 staff, said Bria Foster, a community area director with the WRHA.

If it can fill existing vacancies, it will meet the home care program’s needs for now.

“However, we know that needs with home care change and programs become developed, so these are the types of things we’re also factoring in,” she said.

The training program involves two weeks of in-class lessons, including how to use equipment, perform lifts and bed-to-wheelchair transfers, and administer medication. The students are then paired with an experienced home care worker for two weeks of job shadowing, before they care for clients on their own.

By the end of the four weeks, the uncertified workers will be doing the same job as certified health-care aides and are trained to provide an equal level of service, WRHA said.

The program pays above minimum wage at $19 per hour, and has no formal education requirements. Applicants must have at least a Grade 10 education and some previous experience caring for seniors or people with physical or cognitive impairments.

Capacity for the program is 16 students, but that’s expected to increase once additional instructors are hired, officials said. There are 11 students enrolled in the class that began Monday, and seven uncertified home care workers graduated from the first training intake that began Feb. 7.

This kind of four-week training is already “tried and tested,” Foster said, having already been offered in the early 2000s. Experienced home care workers providing two weeks of on-the-job training won’t receive additional pay.

“Our experienced home care staff are happy to help and support the learning of our uncertified group that are coming in. It’s a double benefit, really, because we know our home care staff have been working so hard throughout the years and this is really an opportunity to have an additional workforce come in and support them in the work that they do,” Foster said.

The training and recruitment plans — including two events at Access St. Boniface March 18 and 29, which will be conducting on-site interviews with interested applicants — don’t include additional boosts for existing staff. Mileage reimbursement will remain the same, following provincial rates, although home care workers have raised concerns the rates are too low.

Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 204 president Debbie Boissonneault, a home care worker herself, said the union has heard concerns about the reduced training being provided under this program.

When she was going through training, the program lasted approximately six months, four weeks of which was on-the-job practicums, she said Monday.

(The uncertified workers go through less training and receive a lower wage than certified health-care aides.)

Existing workers are still waiting for their new collective agreement to be fully implemented, with adjustments to overtime pay and shift premiums not expected to be in place until April 20, a Shared Health memo stated.

Boissonneault said home care workers only began receiving their mandated coffee breaks last week. However, the union acknowledged the need to bolster the workforce, saying recruitment is a step in the right direction.

“It’s a start,” Boissonneault said. “But it’s not only about recruitment, it’s about retaining the people they have.”

katie.may@winnipegfreepress.com