State of Emergency
Emergency orders are meant to protect citizens during times of crisis. But what happens when those same orders hurt the ones who are protecting us?
By Rob Cleveland, Representative
IN THE PARKING LOT OF a small-town Ontario nursing home, I meet with Anna,* a personal support worker (PSW). She has just finished her third double shift of the week.
Looking haggard and defeated, she pleads with me, “We’re at a breaking point, Rob. We have people on approved leaves of absence right now, and I know there are more members headed in that direction.
“We can’t keep this pace up. It’s just too much.”
She tells me that some CLAC members at this facility have not had meaningful time off since the pandemic exploded onto the scene. A good percentage of those workers have not had vacation in well over a year.
Christine, another member who works in the kitchen of the same home, joins us. She’s even more poignant.
“My body is failing me,” she says. “I can’t keep doing this for much longer."
She is only 38 years old. It’s tough to hear.
Ask anyone and they will tell you that they have had enough of COVID-19. But nowhere is this more true than in the long term care (LTC) sector.
It’s not the virus itself that is the cause of all the issues in LTC. Legislation is keeping CLAC members tired and their hands tied— and the people they care for at risk.
Emergency orders from coast to coast are stripping workers of their rights, especially in the overburdened care homes of Ontario. Even worse, some homes are taking advantage of the orders to deny any time off for employees. For many, their jobs have become a working nightmare.
SINCE THE INCEPTION IN EARLY 2020 of emergency orders across Canada’s provinces and territories, more than 19,000 Canadians have succumbed to COVID-19, with almost 6,000 of those deaths occurring in Ontario (figures as of January 31). A staggering 3,300 of those deaths within the province were linked to long term care facilities, prompting officials and citizens to ask why.
Last May, a damning report from the Canadian Armed Forces, which was called to assist in seven Ontario LTC homes, found that chronic understaffing is a root problem.
Premier Doug Ford commented at the time, “Until you live, breathe, eat it . . . until you’re there around the clock, at nighttime and during the day [you don’t know what they are up against].”
Ford’s remarks are ironic, given that the emergency orders enacted by his government are compounding the understaffing issue.
Over the past two decades, CLAC has made it clear to the government that healthcare in Ontario is in crisis. How do we know? To paraphrase the premier, our members have been living, breathing, and gnawing on this agonizing reality for years.
As Michelle, a CLAC member from Chatsworth, Ontario, and an LTC worker, puts it, “Being short-staffed has always been the problem, especially in small towns like ours where it is harder to recruit.”
And she is right. Yet despite the current reality, LTC staff have shown integrity, selflessness, sacrifice, compassion, and gritty determination. They continue to grind out shift after shift in their facilities’ laundry, housekeeping, recreational programs, environmental services, and kitchen and on the floor as PSWs or registered staff members. Their efforts are as inspiring as they are impressive.
Most facilities across Ontario have done their best to mitigate the virus while still allowing staff much-needed respite in the form of vacation time. Healthcare workers and managers have made a Herculean effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in their workplaces, which are home to some of our most susceptible and vulnerable citizens.
Jennifer Kennedy, a CLAC representative working from the Ottawa Member Centre, notes that LTC homes have met this challenge head on, and in the only way that makes sense.
“On the whole, teamwork has been shown by all, including management,” she says. “The homes that have been successful have accepted that a better-together mentality is the only way to protect residents and their caregivers."
BUT NOT ALL HOMES ARE created equal. Some employers are taking advantage of the situation and causing more harm than good.
At the facility where I’m meeting with Anna and Christine, Sara joins us in the parking lot. She’s another overworked PSW on the verge of burnout.
As we stand in our socially distanced circle, tears roll down her face, soaking her blue medical mask.
“Management basically wants us to live in the home,” she says. “And we do. When I’m not here, there is this looming sense of guilt that never goes away because I’m not helping my residents. They need me. They need us.
“I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but if something doesn’t give, I’m going to have to go to my doctor and get a note for stress leave. This is unconscionable. My leave would mean my coworkers have to shoulder even more of the load.”
The stress experienced by LTC staff is real, and when I meet with front-line healthcare workers like these members, the feeling is palpable. Just as important as their physical health, their mental health struggles are very real and should not be dismissed or discounted. If members cannot take care of themselves, how are they possibly supposed to help each other and protect their residents?
As my conversation with Anna, Christine, and Sara shows, we are seeing the effects of the employer’s decisions in real time. The burnout, fatigue, and stress these members are experiencing are often the precursors to an incident or accident. Indeed, such treatment is inhumane.
Another minefield that homes have had to navigate is the risk of civil litigation—that is, the potential of being sued by residents’ families. It’s rampant in the current climate and is reported on a near-daily basis by media outlets. Employers are often more afraid of litigation than they are of burning out the staff they depend on to protect the residents. Across Canada, public health authorities have suggested that this pandemic will continue for at least another six to eight months.
In the meantime, CLAC’s campaign for justice for the members of this home and all members working in Ontario’s overburdened long term care homes will continue.
ON JANUARY 8, CLAC REPRESENTATIVES, our steward team, the union’s lawyer, and an arbitrator met with the employer of this home. It was a long day, but we ultimately found common ground.
The employer has agreed to provide staff members who are willing to voluntarily work extended tours of duty (12-hour shifts) with a monetary premium ($3 per hour for every hour worked during the 12-hour shift). This will create enough available staff so that vacations of five days in length can be granted to members, regardless of the department they work in. Still, it’s not the end of the fight for these members.
“It’s terrible that we had to meet with an arbitrator to try and get vacation relief during the pandemic,” notes a steward who was present at the meeting. “Our members are still suffering from the ineffective decisions management has made, and now we are biting the bullet to get vacation relief.
“Is the deal perfect? Not even close, but it does get us some relief. The end to this pandemic cannot come fast enough for the sake of our residents and my coworkers.”
We will be gathering with our membership at this facility via Zoom to discuss the tenets of the agreement and get their input before it is voted on. The right to be a part of the process that will determine our members’ future has always been—and will always be—the most important aspect of CLAC.
We were never looking for a perfect solution to this matter. This is a workable solution to a frustrating and difficult problem. If this solution doesn’t work, then we will go back to the drawing board and try again—we owe it to our members.
ONTARIO’S EMERGENCY ORDERS HAVE LAID bare the cold, hard realities of our country’s healthcare system. We cannot keep trying to do more with less. Systemic problems in recruitment and retention must be addressed.
Urgent funding is needed, not just for the duration of the emergency orders and not just for PSWs. It takes a village of people to support and care for residents, and all of our healthcare heroes deserve a living wage.
Let’s put the health and safety of our membership and residents in long term care first by devising emergency orders that protect the greatest number of people without sacrificing our healthcare heroes. Workers who are stressed out, overworked, and underappreciated will eventually make unintended mistakes. Corners will get cut. Without change, residents—and CLAC members—are going to continue to be hurt.
*Names have been changed to protect members’ identities
Digging Into Emergency Orders
Ontario’s emergency orders have only served to highlight the ugly truth that the staff of long term care (LTC) centres have been working shorthanded for years.
The order that governs Ontario LTC facilities gives employers the power to reassign resources in the interest of protecting residents and staff from the virus and preventing its spread. It is a tool to help the country get through this international pandemic.
The emergency order dictates that employers can
1. move staff into new roles and provide necessary training;
2. use volunteers or develop new classifications to do bargaining unit work;
3. hire extra staff through employment agencies;
4. go against certain collective agreement provisions (for example, layoffs, seniority, and vacation entitlements) while the order is in effect.
As a tool, the order is meant to assist the sector by establishing new rules and norms during the emergency to help prevent and alleviate outbreaks among residents. Any modifications an employer makes must be reasonably necessary; respond to, prevent, and alleviate the outbreak; and be for the benefit of residents.
The order is not intended to reimagine the workplace every day of the pandemic. But that has been the case in some long term care homes, including those that employ CLAC members.
Canada in Crisis—Again
Though the pandemic and its associated lockdowns may feel like something out of a novel, this isn’t the first time Canada has declared a state of emergency. States of emergency were originally called under the War Measures Act, which was created during World War I and later replaced in 1988 by the Emergencies Act. This updated legislation was more moderate than its predecessor, which included strict and sweeping measures that the federal government could use to deny civil liberties.
Under the War Measures Act, a nationwide state of emergency was called three times: during the internment of Ukrainian Canadians (1914-1918), the interment of Japanese and Italian Canadians (1940-1949), and Quebec’s October Crisis (1970).
On a provincial level, states of emergency have been called more frequently, such as with 2020’s COVID-19 pandemic. A similar virus-related event occurred in 2003 with the SARS outbreak in Ontario, which was declared under the Emergency Measures Act.
Severe weather, such as flooding and wildfire, tops the list of reasons that provinces and territories have called states of emergency. In 2019 alone, seven provinces declared states of emergencies due to snowstorms.
But there are manmade reasons that states of emergency may be instituted. For example, the government of British Columbia called on the Public Health Act in 2016 to counter the province’s growing opioid crisis.
Sources: thecanadianencyclopedia.ca, wikipedia.com