OTTAWA, ON — The care needs of Ontario long-term care residents have increased significantly in the last decade, yet the provincial Liberal government funds long-term care at the lowest level in the country. Data shows that Ottawa area long-term care residents at 17 area homes are shortchanged 1,460 hours of health care each day and 532,642 hours a year compared to the rest of Canada. That is an extra 273 full-time health care staff.
Tomorrow, Friday, April 21, 2017 at 12:30 p.m., Ottawa and eastern Ontario long-term care staff are taking the care and understaffing issues to the constituency doorstep of Ottawa-Vanier MPP Nathalie Des Rosiers. They want her to support Bill 33 (Time to Care Act), legislation that would give residents 4 hours of care daily.
“Our seniors in Ontario need to know that someone will be there to give them the care they need and deserve. And right now that isn’t happening,” says Joanne Waddell an eastern Ontario long-term care worker. “We’re reaching out to all MPPs from all three parties and asking them to support Bill 33. It’s the right thing to do. For all of us.”
The majority of Ontario long-term care residents are over 85 years old with complex conditions, including many with dementia.
In Ottawa and across Ontario, front line personal support workers (PSWs) and registered practical nurses (RPNs) report that the care they are able to provide residents is not adequate to meet residents’ increasing needs. Care they say is compromised in a number of areas including resident cleanliness, eating, dressings, conditions that force residents into incontinence, and insufficient infection control. Sadly, they say a lack of time to provide emotional care to residents, who are often at their most vulnerable and in the final stages of life, is now the “accepted norm.”
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For more information please contact:
Stella Yeadon CUPE Communications 416-559-9300
