Monday, March 6, 2023

Fixing Ontario’s Healthcare System

When thousands of members band together to care for their patients, residents, and each other, change is possible

By Mira Ponomarenko, Ontario Healthcare Coordinator

It has been a long time. Three years of masking, antigen tests, and quarantines. But decades of underfunding and understaffing. Decades of underpaying and undervaluing healthcare workers, whether you work in long term care, a retirement home, in homecare, or in a hospital.

With the pandemic under control, it is time to look at fixing the healthcare system that brought many of you to the brink over the last three years.

There are glimmers of hope. The PSW wage increase of $3 per hour has been made permanent in long term care and homecare—something CLAC strongly pushed the government for. The next goal is to restore the balance for workers in other classifications who were left behind and to address the wage gaps for retirement home workers.

We have advocated for years to increase levels of care in long term care. This spring, the target is going up to three hours and fifteen minutes of direct care per resident per day. It is a victory for healthcare workers and residents of those homes.

The federal government is adding billions of dollars to the provinces’ healthcare budgets, with emphasis on mental health and substance use, home and community care, and long term care.

It is important to acknowledge the progress, yet not to lose sight of the work ahead. More change is needed. We must better recognize your incredible contributions, bring fairness, and improve compensation and staffing.

In the Ontario budget process, CLAC made recommendations to address significant issues in our healthcare system, and we urge policymakers to focus on critical staffing issues throughout the system. Without proper compensation, it will remain difficult to attract and keep qualified workers in this field.

Establish and fund a minimum annual healthcare wage increase that would make sure that no healthcare worker is left behind when inflation and the minimum wage increase.

Set a fair and equitable wage for PSWs and RPNs in the homecare sector that is at par with long term care home workers of the same classifications. Their role in helping patients to maintain dignity and independence must be recognized.

Abandon Bill 124 and correct the harm that the law has already caused in the nonprofit health and social services sectors.

Require WSIB coverage for retirement home workers, and improve WSIB coverage for all. Private plans are failing workers. Getting sick or injured on the job should not be costing you.

Making positive change is slow and hard work. Nobody knows that better than you and your fellow members. But when thousands of members band together to care for their patients, residents, and each other, change is possible. Get involved and together let’s make it happen.

4 Things the Government Urgently Needs to Do

Establish and fund a minimum annual healthcare wage increase that would make sure that no healthcare worker is left behind when inflation and the minimum wage increase.
Set a fair and equitable wage for PSWs and RPNs in the homecare sector that is at par with long term care home workers of the same classifications. Their role in helping patients to maintain dignity and independence must be recognized.
Abandon Bill 124 and correct the harm that the law has already caused in the nonprofit health and social services sectors.
Require WSIB coverage for retirement home workers, and improve WSIB coverage for all. Private plans are failing workers. Getting sick or injured on the job should not be costing you.

Fixing Ontario’s Healthcare System

4 Things the Government Urgently Needs to Do

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