Home care workers decry severe staff shortage

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This article was published 28/12/2021 (1386 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

SHORTAGES of home-care workers in rural Manitoba have pushed vacancy rates as high as 30 per cent in some regions, and remaining front-line workers say surging COVID-19 transmission rates and a lack of sick pay puts them and their clients at risk.

Home-care services have been under the most strain in northern and southern parts of the province, but vacancy rates are high across the board this month: 32 per cent in the Northern health region, 29.5 per cent in Southern Health, 22 per cent in Prairie Mountain, 21 per cent in Interlake-Eastern, and 12 per cent in the Winnipeg region, show figures provided to the Free Press from Shared Health.

Officials haven’t revealed how many of the vacancies stem from unvaccinated workers taking unpaid leave or quitting rather than undergoing regular COVID-19 testing, but a Shared Health spokesperson said that is not the “main driver” behind the vacancy rates anywhere in Manitoba.

Instead, the problem has been pinned on “the same long-term historical challenges other sectors of the workforce face — both health and non-health-related — in finding qualified staff to work in primarily rural communities.”

Shared Health stated health regions are still trying to recruit and retain home-care workers.

Two home-care workers who spoke on the condition of anonymity, as they feared for their jobs, said the shortage means clients are missing out on their regularly scheduled home-care visits — sometimes losing multiple visits each week.

On top of administering medication, bathing clients, changing bandages and getting them dressed, workers are responsible for household duties such as laundry and meal preparation. If the worker who was scheduled to be there in the morning or afternoon doesn’t show up, there’s more for the evening worker to do, and vice versa.

Shortages worsened in the wake of the policy implemented in the fall that requires workers to be fully vaccinated or submit to regular testing, said one home-care worker who sees clients in the Southern Health region.

“I’ve never seen it so bad,” she said, saying some clients have become “verbally aggressive” when she arrives because they’ve missed visits from other workers.

Although she is fully vaccinated, the home-care worker said she is constantly worried about contracting the virus and transmitting it to vulnerable clients.

“I’m afraid of getting COVID at work. Every time I go to work, there’s always that risk,” she said, adding she worries especially when she goes into homes where several family members are gathered and none are wearing masks.

She said she often thinks about quitting, but feels for clients who rely on her.

“To a lot of these people, we are the only people they see every day.”

The worker said she hasn’t been given rapid tests and is expected to self-isolate while awaiting PCR test results if she has any symptoms of COVID-19. She said workers don’t have adequate sick-time benefits to cover the time they would have to be off work, creating a financial burden. Another home-care worker in Winnipeg said she struggled to pay bills because she had to self-isolate.

“If you even have as much as a sniffle, you could be off for a week (without) pay,” she said.

“We have to choose between going into work sick or not paying our car payment.”

Instead of paid sick days, home-care workers receive a credit that reimburses them for about 66 per cent of the wages they missed while out sick. They only receive the credit for partial pay if they have already banked a certain number of hours.

“They really do have a raw deal” that was negotiated while home-care workers were still represented by the Manitoba Government and General Employees’ Union, said Debbie Boissonneault, president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 204.

About 1,500 home-care workers in Manitoba are represented by CUPE. The union has been in bargaining for 10 months, with upcoming sessions set for January, as it tries to secure a new deal for health-care support staff, including home-care workers, who’ve been without a contract since 2017.

Clients in the Winnipeg region were warned Monday that the recent snowfall might prevent their home-care workers from getting to them. The WRHA urged clients to use backup plans and cautioned that weather-related cancellations or delays might be inevitable.

As of last week, 125 direct-care staff were on unpaid leave from various positions across Manitoba, Shared Health confirmed. Twenty-seven additional staff resigned after initially going on leave, and 38 others have returned to work.

katie.may@freepress.mb.ca