On the verge: Canada’s healthcare workers struggle to survive the pandemic

OTTAWA / TORONTO (Reuters) – For 15 years, Halima has supported herself and her three children by working long hours caring for elderly clients in nursing homes or their personal homes in Toronto.

But with the increase in COVID-19 infections last year, Halima’s hours were cut because caregivers in Ontario were restricted to working in just one facility, and suddenly she couldn’t afford her monthly C rent. $ 1,800 ($ 1,407) from your apartment.

Halima, who asked to be identified only by her first name, managed to keep a roof over her head, cutting off groceries. As a part-time worker, she has no benefits and no paid sick leave.

“Food and rent, everything is very expensive. It is difficult to live now, ”said Halima in an interview.

Canada is struggling to tame a second wave of COVID-19 and prevent the spread of new variants. The elderly have suffered the impact of the pandemic: 70% of the more than 20,000 COVID-19 deaths in Canada occurred in long-term care homes.

Personal support workers (PSWs) have long struggled with housing insecurity in expensive Canadian cities, but the pandemic has worsened the situation for many, taking some to the homeless street and leaving others on the brink, according to workers, administrators shelters, union employees and health lawyers.

At the center of their struggle are low wages and fewer hours amid pandemic restrictions that prevent them from working in several nursing homes. The problem is more acute among part-time workers in for-profit nursing homes.

In populous Ontario, the majority of PSWs are women and about 60% work in for-profit households, many in part-time, high-turnover jobs, according to a recent report by the Canadian Women’s Foundation.

Some receive close to a minimum wage, which means that they earn just enough, even with full-time hours of work, to get around the poverty level of a single person without dependents. A recent survey found that 67% of PSWs reported making less cash now than before the pandemic.

Even full-time care workers earning the average salary in Ontario would fall short of the poverty level of a family of four in Toronto.

“I suspect that people who were on a salary or two from being homeless … now don’t have that isolation,” said Naheed Dosani, a doctor and health justice activist in Toronto.

Dosani added that the “broken” system that is pushing frontline workers, including essential health workers, to the homeless is also a health risk to the community, as workers could carry COVID-19 from homes to shelters and vice versa.

In fact, an outbreak at a homeless shelter in Ottawa last year originated from two women who worked in long-term care facilities but lived in the shelter.

“They just can’t make enough money to pay Ottawa’s rental terms,” ​​said Dr. Jeff Turnbull, medical director at Ottawa Inner City Health, to a commission investigating COVID-19 in Ontario homes in late December. .

“And then they brought COVID from a long-term care facility to the shelters where we had an outbreak,” said Turnbull.

There are no official statistics on PSWs living in shelters and other emergency homes, although frontline officials in Ottawa and Toronto have told Reuters that it is a growing problem.

At Cornerstone Housing for Women in Ottawa, shelter use increased 47.5% compared to the pre-pandemic, said executive director Sarah Davis. The organization now serves about 200 women a day and about 5% of them are frontline workers, including PSWs.

“Women are trying to save money and (living in shelters) is one of the only options they can have,” said Davis.

Cornerstone and three other Ottawa shelters have stopped receiving new customers this week because of the outbreaks of COVID-19.

In British Columbia, the province has introduced pandemic salary supplements of up to C $ 7 / hour and guaranteed hours. Ontario, Alberta and others have not protected hours, resulting in less work and less income for many workers, the unions say.

The situation is particularly difficult in Ontario, where rents are high and many for-profit nursing homes prefer to keep workers on part-time contracts rather than taking on full-time personnel expenses.

“In some of these houses, 70% of the workforce is part-time. Why do they want them part-time? Because they don’t have to pay health insurance and benefits, ”said Katha Fortier, a senior employee at Unifor, Canada’s largest private sector union.

Low wages and the precarious nature of PSW work are not unique to Canada. The majority of long-term care workers in OECD countries are women and a large part work part-time, according to a 2019 OECD article. A significant number have several jobs to survive.

Still, Canada spends less than the OECD average on long-term care as a percentage of GDP: 1.3% compared to 1.7%, according to OECD data.

In Vancouver, Canada’s most expensive housing market, Agnes Pecson lives in a two-bedroom apartment with her husband, adult daughter and teenage son.

Before the pandemic, Pecson worked 55 hours a week between two jobs. Now she works full-time in one and, even with BC’s salary increase, she can barely survive.

“We live on salary for salary,” said Pecson.

($ 1 = 1.2727 Canadian dollars)