Thursday, November 1, 2018

Government Cancels Homecare Agency

In August, the government announced that it was cancelling the proposed personal support services of Ontario agency (PSSO). CLAC celebrated this move and congratulated the government on behalf of our members who provide homecare services, and we expressed relief that the government was not proceeding with this poorly conceived experiment.

In November 6, 2017, the CBC broke the story about the government quietly launching an organization that would directly employ PSWs delivering homecare services. As word leaked, nearly all stakeholders, including CLAC, the Ontario Personal Support Workers Association, and Home Care Ontario, which represents 40 homecare agencies, criticized the move.

This new agency would have been competing directly with private and not-for-profit homecare agencies, such as the Victorian Order of Nurses. Due to funding and staffing shortages, these agencies were already struggling to deliver homecare services, and the new government agency would only have made this worse.

The government planned to allow homecare clients to self-select their care provider. In our submission to the government, we pointed out how this move would have made the work even
more precarious, as scheduling would become subject to the desires of the client. Worker earnings would have been even more unpredictable, and the agency would have created a barrier
between the worker and their true employer. This caused concern as to who would be responsible for the safety and well-being of PSWs who work alone on the client’s premises.

CLAC Healthcare Coordinator Michael Reid and Ontario Director Ian DeWaard held several meetings with the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care and with the CEO of the new organization. At those meetings, and in a letter to then Minister of Health, Eric Hoskins, we detailed how disruptive and potentially dangerous this organization would be to front-line workers.

“As a union that represents PSWs who provide homecare services in Toronto, London, and Brant-Simcoe-Haldimand-Norfolk, we are relieved the PSSO will not be going forward,” says
DeWaard. “The PSSO was a redundant program that would have done little to enhance homecare, and nothing to protect workers from precarious employment and other issues faced in
healthcare.”

We also used the opportunity to encourage the government to direct much-needed resources to this sector, and to long term care generally. The new government has committed to add
15,000 new long term care beds in the province. This is necessary step to meet the demands of the aging baby boomers, but front-line staff also need more hours, more staff, and training to deal with the current and increasing number of people in the system.

“All major political parties voted in support of providing a minimum of four hours of care per day in Ontario’s long term care homes, recognizing the urgent need for more staffing in these
homes,” says DeWaard. “We call on the government to care for our seniors with compassion and dignity.”

Government Cancels Homecare Agency

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