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Irene Jansen

Ontario's Plan for Personal Support Workers - 0 views

healthydebate.ca/...personal-support-workers

care aide ontario regulation education staffing

shared by Irene Jansen on 11 May 12 - No Cached
  • May 16 is Personal Support Worker Day. PSWs are increasingly providing the majority of direct care services to elderly or ill patients who live in long-term care institutions or who receive home care.
  • Richards noted that “they [PSWs] are constantly on the go … they have very little time to actually sit down and provide comfort to residents and build that important relationship between themselves as caregivers with the residents and their family members”.
  • There is a great deal of variation in what PSWs do, where they work, and how they are supervised. This has made many argue that there must be more standardized training and regulation of PSWs. Others point out that it is at least as important to ensure that their working conditions allow PSWs to provide the compassionate and high quality care that their clients deserve.
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  • PSWs have a role standard  which says “personal support workers do for a person the things that the person would do for themselves, if they were physically or cognitively able”.
  • There is a great deal of variation around the kind of care PSW’s provide, with some PSWs providing medical care such as changing wound dressings and administering medication, and others providing  ‘only’ personal care such as bathing, transfers from bed and housework. What PSWs can and cannot do varies based on their training, supervision and employer policies.
  • An estimated 57,000 PSWs in Ontario work in the long-term care sector, 26,000 work for agencies that provide community and home care, and about 7,000 provide care in hospitals.
  • Changes to the Long-Term Care Act in 2010 outlined a minimum standard of education for PSWs working in that sector specifically.
  • PSWs working in long-term care homes are required to work under the supervision of a registered nurse or registered practical nurse
  • Some have suggested that rather than standardizing education for PSWs, more standards should be put in place around PSW supervision, scope of practice and work environment in long-term care and community agencies.
  • 92% of PSWs are women, and many work at multiple part time jobs, involving a great deal of shift work.  PSWs are often paid minimum wages with few benefits.
  • Community colleges, continuing education programs and private career colleges offer courses or programs of varying durations, with no standardized core curriculum across the programs. There is no single body in Ontario that monitors the quality of these programs.
  • a PSW Registry to collect information about the training and employment status of the nearly 100,000 PSWs in Ontario
  • Long-Term Care Task Force on Resident Care and Safety
  • “a registry is a mechanism of counting and it doesn’t ensure anything about quality, preparation or standards.”
  • in the past two months there have been stakeholder consultations around educational standards for PSWs
  • Catherine Richards, Cause for Concern: Ontario’s Long Term Care Homes (Facebook group)
  • “PSWs have high expectations put on them but very little support to do their jobs.”
  • In my opinion, what we need most is a ministry (MOHLTC) that will demonstrate leadership by clarifying the role of the PSW in long-term care, nursing homes, hospitals and yes, home care, and to consistently enforce high standards of care
  • PSWs should feel able to rely on consistent supervision and clear guidance from registered nursing staff and management, yet from my observation there is a lack of communication between PSWs and RPNs/RNs in a long term care home setting, and rarely in my experience is honest communication encouraged to include patients/residents and families. In home care, PSWs have even less support or supervision which should concern people.
  • PSWs are rarely afforded the time to properly perform the necessary tasks assigned to them and they often bear the brunt of complaints
  • it is the leadership that must accept the bulk of responsibility when PSW care standards are low
  • Ombudsman oversight would provide an immediate and direct incentive to elevate care standards
  • In Nova Scotia, a registry was put in place for Continuing Care Assistants (the provinces’ equivalent to PSWs) in 2010 which has been used to communicate directly with CCAs as well as keep track of where they work. In addition, the registry provides resources and the development of a personalized learning plan to help care givers who do not have the provincial CCA obtain further training. British Columbia has also recently introduced a registry for Care Aids and Community Support Workers.
  • CUPE addresses these issues in Our Vision For Better Seniors’ Care: http://cupe.ca/privatization-watch-february-2010/our-vision-research-paper
  • having someone help you bathe, dress, eat and even wash your hair is as important as the medical care
  • I have worked in a Long-Term Care Facility for four years and have many concerns
  • it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that some point of care is being neglected
  • need to have more PSW staff on the front line
  • “it is like an assembly line here in the morning”
  • I don’t think these people are getting the dignity and respect they deserve.
  • We want to stop responsive behaviours, we need to know what triggers are. what is the root cause
  • We can’t do this with having less than 15 mins per resident for care.
  • I also believe that registering PSW’s will eliminate those who are in the career for just the money.
  • I have been a PSW for 8 years
  • Every year they talk more and more about residents rights, dignity ect ect … and yet every year, residents have been given less one on one time, poorer quality of meals, cut backs on activities and more than anything else, a lessened quality of care provided by over worked PSW’s.
  • Residents have floor mat sensors, wheelchair sensors, wander guard door alarm sensors, bed alarm sensors and add that to the endless stream of call bells and psw’s pagers sounding, it sounding like you are living inside a firestation with non-stop fire
  • they do not provide the staff to PREVENT the resident from falling
  • bell fatigue
  • This registry is just another cash grab
  • Now, it will be that much easier to put the blame on us.
  • When we do our 1.5hrs worth of charting every night they tell us to lie and say we have done restorative care and other tasks which had no time to do so they can provide funding which never seems to result in more staff.
  • for the Cupe reps reading this. You make me sick. Your union doesn’t back us up in the slightest and you have allowed for MANY additional tasks to be put onto psw’s without any increase in pay.
  • In the past year alone our charting has become computerized and went from 25mins to 1.5hrs. We now provide restorative care like rehab workers and now are officially responsible for applying and charting for medicated creams, not to mention the additional time spent now that prn behavior meds were discontinued and restraints removed created chaos
  • when your union reps come into meeting with us to “support” us, they side with our managers
  • about this registry
  • my sister works for 12 dollars H in Retirenment home
  • she has over 40 Residents
  • you should work in Long Term Care then, you will make a few buck more, still have 30-40 residents but at least you have a partner. On the other hand though, unlike retirement homes, for those 30-40 people, you will be dealing with aggressive behaviors, resistive residents, dementia, 75% of your residents will require a mechanical lift, you will have 1-2hrs worth of charting to do on top of your already hectic work load which they will not provide you more time to complete it, so only expect to get one 15min break in an 8 hr shift and often stay late to finish your charting.
  • As long as retirement homes are privily own they will always be run under the landlord and tenant act. That’s why they can work you like a dog and get away with it.
  • My 95 year old Dad is in LTC.
  • PSW’s simply do NOT have time to maintain, let alone enhance seniors’ quality of life.
  • there are NO rules or regulations about what the ratio of PSW staff to residents “should be”
  • quality is more than assistance with daily hygene, feeding, dressing, providing meds, getting people up in the morning, putting them to bed in the evening
  • psw’s are not only caregivers/ nurses we r also sometimes ONLY friend
  • The solution to our problem begins at the top, and this all seems very backwards to me.
  • Personal support workers are one of the back bones of the health care system.
  • Eleven years later, and nothing has changed? Something’s wrong here!
  • But I will not let this discourage me from taking the course, because no other job I’ve had has even come close to being as rewarding or fulfilling
  • is to many P.S.W in Ontario,and is not respect for them
  • Too many PSW’s are working as a Casual Employee
  • The pay is better in Long Term care as we know but PSW’s work for that extra few dollars more an hour
  • Most of us enjoy the field but more work has to be done to take care of your PSW’s and a pat on the back is just not going to do it.
  • administration has to stop being greedy with their big wages and start finding more money to invest in your front line, the PSW
Govind Rao

Problems implementing pay hike for PSWs undermine Liberal health plan in Ontario - Info... - 0 views

www.fpinfomart.ca/doc/doc_display.php?key=pr|245142|ntgm|20150511|220231744

from heather Ontario psw wages cupe ltc

shared by Govind Rao on 11 May 15 - No Cached
  • The Globe and Mail Mon May 11 2015
  • INTO THE HOME The cost of moving health care out of hospitals It was one of the showpiece promises that Ontario's Liberals made before their government fell last year: a $4-an-hour wage hike for the personal support workers who are critical to the government's plans to shift health care out of expensive hospitals and into the home. More than a year and an election victory later, the PSW "wage enhancement" program is beset by so many complexities that the government has delayed indefinitely the second phase of the pay hike - a $1.50-an-hour raise that was due April 1 - while it works to mop up the problems on the ground, a Globe and Mail investigation has found.
  • Twenty-seven mostly non-profit health-care agencies across the province are refusing to accept the government-funded increase and pass it on to their workers, while one of the largest privatesector employers of PSWs in Ontario cut what it pays in mileage and travel time just after the first phase of the raise kicked in last fall, leaving some employees worse off than they were before the wage-enhancement program began. The PSW raise was also more expensive than expected, costing the province at least $77.8-million in 2014-15, 56 per cent more than the $50-million earmarked for the first year of the pledge.
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  • Although Health Minister Eric Hoskins has vowed that this year's portion of the raise will eventually be doled out retroactively to April 1, the delay has caused "a lot of confusion, uncertainty and frustration," among PSWs in the home and community care field, according to Kelly O'Sullivan, the chair for CUPE Ontario's health-care workers. "It adds to the ongoing precarious nature of this work," she said. "You can't even depend on a wage increase that's been promised to you by the government."
  • The government's PSW Workforce Stabilization Strategy was designed to make home-care work less precarious, not more. PSWs deliver more than half of all home-care services, helping clients to dress, bathe, prepare meals, tidy up and manage medications, among other tasks. Yet their paycheques are traditionally smaller and their schedules more erratic than those of PSWs who work in hospitals and nursing homes, making it difficult to retain quality workers in home and community care. Persuading PSWs to choose the home-care field is essential to the Ontario government's efforts to keep people out of hospitals and nursing homes for as long as possible - a way to stretch increasingly scarce health-care dollars and respond to the public's desire to heal and age at home.
  • People interviewed for this story were quick to praise the Liberals for trying to improve the lot of home-care PSWs and their clients by raising their minimum wage to $16.50 an hour from $12.50 over three years. The intention was laudable, they said. The execution of the plan was not. "This should be the best news story ever," said Deborah Simon, the chief executive officer of the Ontario Community Support Association, which represents hundreds of non-profit agencies that help people at home. Instead, Ms. Simon said, the Byzantine rules around the pay hike have created an "administrative burden" for organizations.
  • At the heart of the problem is which workers - and which kinds of work - qualify for the government-funded pay bump. While the government set a wage floor of $16.50 an hour as of 2016-17, it delivered the public funds through a "wage enhancement" that only applies when PSWs are providing "personal support services" funded by Local Health Integrated Networks (LHINs), the province's regional health authorities.
  • That means time spent in training, travelling to clients' homes or performing tasks such as food preparation do not qualify for the higher rate. Initially, even statutory holidays were paid out without the increase, although that has been reversed. Jason Lye, national head of independent living services at March of Dimes, says his agency spent months clarifying provincial rules, only passing on the first phase of the raise retroactively to workers in February in the form of a "blended rate" that takes into account how they historically have divided their time.
  • "The way I like to interpret it is when you see the whites of the clients' eyes, you are paying the $1.50," Mr. Lye said. There were other complications. The raise goes to all PSWs doing work that qualifies, meaning the $4 increase goes to everyone, whether they are making a base wage of $12.50 or $22 an hour. That has put pressure on employers to give raises to others, such as registered practical nurses and supervisors.
  • The rules also exclude some PSWs because of where they work or because the provincial funds that pay for their services do not flow through the province's 14 LHINs. The result is that PSWs within the same organization can be treated differently. Kingsway Lodge Fairhill Residence in the southwestern Ontario town of St. Marys chose to reject the increase because it would create an untenable disparity in its already well-compensated PSW work force. Hourly wages there range from $17.73 to $20.44. The organization operates a nursing home with round-theclock care, a retirement home and six supportive-housing suites where residents receive a few hours of personal support per day. The wage enhancement would have applied only in the supportive apartments. "There would be no way to do it because our staff flow between the three levels of care," said Theresa Wakem, the facility's administrator. At Traverse Independence, an agency in Kitchener that serves adults with physical disabilities and acquired brain injuries, management had to find $27,000 in a $6-million budget to give eight PSWs working in a day program the same raise as their colleagues. "It was a hardship," said CEO Toby Harris. The agency eliminated half a supervisor's job to cover the increase.
  • The wage enhancement helped a little bit, but we're still on the losing side," said the PSW, who asked not to be named. The company's London employees are not unionized. The PSW said some workers in London are refusing to serve clients outside the city because they are paid so little to travel there. "If I drove six hours in the county, I'd be lucky to get paid for three hours," the PSW said. Dr. Hoskins said before the Liberals committed to the pay increase, "we didn't have a tremendous amount of information about our PSWs - who they're working for, how much they're being remunerated."
  • The ministry is gathering data so it can "fine-tune" the second year of the program, including whether future increases should apply to all PSWs, even those already earning much more than $16.50 an hour, he said. He added that nearly 500 health-service providers have passed the increase on to their PSWs and the government expects the 27 holdouts to follow suit. As for Revera's changes, "I find that unacceptable," Dr. Hoskins said. "The ministry would be looking into those circumstances if they were brought to our attention." Ms. O'Sullivan, the CUPE representative, called the program's rollout "a reflection of a broader problem" with home and community care in Ontario.
  • If we can't figure out - we as in the government, the agencies and the unions - how everyone should be getting something as simple as a wage increase in an equitable way, can you imagine if you are a family member or a patient needing care, what the system must be like?" This is the first article of a Globe investigation into the challenges of moving health care out of hospitals and into the home. If you have a personal story to tell, contact Elizabeth Church at echurch@globeandmail.com and Kelly Grant at kgrant@globeandmail.com.
Irene Jansen

CBC.ca | White Coat, Black Art | WCBA Season Debut: Personal Support Workers and Seniors - 0 views

www.cbc.ca/...al-support-workers-and-seniors

retirement homes care aide regulation ltc ontario

shared by Irene Jansen on 23 Jan 12 - No Cached
  • today, more and more seniors are being cared for by largely unregulated health care workers.  The workers go by different names in different parts of the country.  BC, Saskatchewan, New Brunswick and Newfoundland call them Home Support Workers.  In Alberta and Quebec, they're known as Health Care Aides.  Canada's largest province calls them Personal Support Workers or PSWs
  • click below to listen right now or download the podcast: 
  • Some of these care providers work in hospitals, but the majority are employed by long-term care facilities and home care agencies. They also provide much of the care given to seniors at more than 650 privately-operated and largely unregulated retirement homes across Ontario.  These residences may also be known as assisted living as well as care homes. 
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  • It is at places like these that PSWs say they're expected to perform duties that go beyond their training and their scope of practice. The PSWs we spoke to are concerned that performing those duties may put their professional well-being and the safety or residents at risk. 
  • There are no national standards for PSW training programs. 
  • Health Canada estimates that there are 100,000 PSWs working in Ontario alone.
  • In Ontario, community colleges, private career colleges, Boards of Education, and Not-for-Profit training organizations operate PSW schools.  The courses - which range between 600 and nearly 800 hours in length - include theory plus supervised practical work experience.
  • PSWs can assist clients to take their own medications.  That means they may help seniors open pill bottles and blister packs.  According to PSW training, what they shouldn't do is measure medications and administer them to seniors. 
  • Increasingly, they're being asked to that and more.
  • "We actually do wound care as well."
  • "When I started, it was another PSW that was on duty that was training me to do everything."
  • Natrice Rese is a retired PSW who speaks for the Ontario Personal Support Worker Association (OPSWA).
  • We're being pushed beyond what our training is, and we're being told if we don't like it, we can leave."
  • "It was written in the book.  If levels are between this and that, you dose that."
  • "Everybody that works there is burning out and it's getting pretty scary," says Jen.
  • "When a mistake happens, then it's the PSW's head that rolls,"
  • it's not illegal for PSWs to perform duties like injecting insulin or administering narcotics at retirement homes.  But the rules governing what PSWs like Jen and Brenda can do at retirement homes are unclear and open to disagreement.
  • In 2010, the Ontario Government passed the Retirement Homes Act.  It requires that the people licensed in the province to run retirement homes ensure all the staff employed there have the proper skills and qualifications to perform their duties and that they possess the prescribed qualifications.  However, the Act does not give specifics on what duties PSWs can and cannot perform.
  • the laws that regulate health professionals do permit PSWs to perform some of these nursing-type duties provided they are part of the resident's routine activities of living
  • For example, it's probably okay for a PSW to inject the same dose of insulin each day to a resident with well-controlled diabetes because that's part of the resident's daily routine.  But, it would not be permissible to inject insulin where the dose needs to be adjusted frequently.
  • permission for the PSW to perform a nursing duty under 'exception' provisions must be granted for each resident
  • Paul Williams, a health policy expert at the University of Toronto says little is known about what kind of medical care is delivered at retirement homes.
  • Williams was part of an expert panel set up by the Ontario Government to consider how to regulate retirement homes.  He says he sees little appetite for tight regulation of retirement homes.
  • "If we start to regulate, if we put in quality improvement stuff, if we start to accredit along recognized lines, you're going to push the cost up,"
  • As for regulating PSWs like the provinces do nurses and physicians, Williams says that's just as unlikely.
  • When you professionalize a group, you take responsibility for what they do.
  • "Maybe there's a disincentive to governments to regulate PSWs because quite frankly, it will probably cost you more money.  You can't pay twelve dollars an hour (a typical wage for PSWs) to someone who is professionally regulated."
  • Last year, BC became the first province to set up a registry of PSWs, known there as care aides and community health workers.  The registry sets province-wide training standards and ensures a fair process for investigating complaints against front line workers.  Earlier this year, Ontario announced plans to set up its own PSW registry.
  • The issue of who does what while caring for your loved ones will undoubtedly grow in the years ahead.  Given our aging population, would-be residents of retirement homes are increasingly likely to be frail seniors with dementia who require complex medical care.  They will need skilled, competent and well-educated professionals to meet their medical needs. 
Irene Jansen

CBC.ca | White Coat, Black Art | Unfinished Business Show - 0 views

www.cbc.ca/...unfinished-business-show-1

care aide retirement homes regulation ltc ontario

shared by Irene Jansen on 23 Jan 12 - No Cached
  • we have reaction from Ontario's Minister of Health and Long Term Care to our season debut episode on personal support workers and the work they do at retirement homes in the Province of Ontario
  • personal support workers or PSWs, the subject of our full edition season debut episode back in September
  • unlike nursing homes, retirement homes operate in a regulatory grey zone.  And it's at these retirement homes where we found PSWs who say they're expected to perform duties they aren't qualified to do, like injecting insulin or administering narcotics.
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  • We played some of Jen's interview to Deb Mathews, Ontario Minister of Health and Long Term Care. 
  • "That is a very troubling clip you just played for me," Mathews told WCBA.  "No health care worker should ever be put into a position where they feel that they're compromising the health and safety of their patients or their own personal safety."
  • As for the operators of retirement homes that compel PSWs to perform nursing duties that they may not be qualified to perform? "Well, I would say that they're taking a very big risk," she added.  "They really should not be supporting a practice that isn't safe."
  • But if retirement homes are taking a big risk, as the Minister puts it, it's a risk that exists in part because retirement homes aren't regulated nearly as strictly as long term care facilities.  And that won't be changing any time soon.  In terms of regulations, a retirement home is little different from your own home.  
  • Irene Jansen on 23 Jan 12
     
    The story on PSWs and interview with Deb Mathews runs from minute 1:34 to minute 9:28. Mathews: I would say to the operators "they are taking a very big risk and they really should not be supporting a practice that isn't safe - they have to take that responsibility very seriously" I'm asking PSWs to "please stand up and report this". The scope of practice for PSWs is not as clear as it ought to be ... this is why we're establishing the PSW registry. It will allow us to see the training and experience of PSW - this information will be available to the public. My expertise is long-term care homes. Very high standards there. Retirement homes in Ontario are different - wide range of people. They do not fall under the Ministry of Health. Dr. Goldman: Why not regulate retirement homes? Mathews: Because they serve a very different function - e.g. for people who are very healthy but would like to have for example their meals prepared for them. They are not health care facilities the way long term care homes are. A retirement home is a home. We really do want to offer choice to people. The retirement homes determine when a person needs care they can't provide. Dr. Goldman: Regulation of PSWs?  Mathews: I don't see it any time soon. We are working with our training colleges and universities on a common curriculum. Until we have that standard training and established scope of practice, we can't take them the next step to make them a regulated health care professional.
Heather Farrow

How a 'pay hike' turned into a nasty pay cut - Infomart - 0 views

www.fpinfomart.ca/doc/doc_display.php?key=pr|246471|tost|20160804|253067051

Ontario psw wages home care ltc

shared by Heather Farrow on 04 Aug 16 - No Cached
  • Toronto Star Thu Aug 4 2016
  • When is a $4-an-hour pay raise not a pay raise? When it's given to the lowest-paid health-care workers who suddenly find their weekly incomes falling - not increasing. That's exactly what's happening for thousands of personal support workers (PSWs) in home- and community-care services across Ontario.
  • Those same PSWs cheered loudly when the government of Premier Kathleen Wynne announced last year it was raising their minimum base wage by $4 over three years up to a maximum of $19 an hour. It was a dream come true for PSWs, most of whom work long hours and at a job that paid just $12.50 an hour. Only a handful of full-time PSWs earn more than $30,000 a year. But that dream has turned into a nightmare as government health-care agencies force PSWs, who are paid by the hour and are not on a fixed salary, to spend less time with clients and have also reduced the number of clients they see.
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  • The result is that many PSW actually earn less money now than they did before they received the government-mandated "pay raise." "We have received widespread complaints of our members losing clients and losing hours of work," says Miranda Ferrier, president of the Ontario Personal Support Workers Association, which has 21,000 members. Overall, there are about 34,000 PSWs working in the home- and community-care sector in Ontario. Ferrier says she has raised the issue with provincial health officials with not much success, noting the problem is worst in northern and eastern Ontario. "Clients are not receiving as many hours of care as before the pay raise," she says. For example, an elderly client at home may now get just one shower a week, rather than two.
  • Personal support workers are trained, licensed front-line health-care professionals whose duties include dressing, bathing, toileting and transferring patients, especially the elderly. They also provide emotional and physical support as well as companionship to isolated patients who are still living at home. "As caregivers we are all here because we love what we do and we care about people and want to help them," one PSW from eastern Ontario wrote recently in an email. "We are the ones with them from the beginning to the end. We are the ones holding their hands and providing comfort as they are dying. We are the ones feeling the pain of loss. We are the ones who leave heartbroken and crying for our client as they suffer and pass away. "The emotional toll this takes on us no one sees, yet we do it all again because we love what we do. We wipe our tears and put on a smile and go to our next client.
  • We deserve better and our clients definitely deserve better." She's right because treating low-paid workers so shabbily is a disgrace. It's time the Wynne government took steps to ensure that its well-intentioned pay raise truly does mean more income, not less, for PSWs who deserve better. Bob Hepburn's column appears Thursday. bhepburn@thestar.ca
Irene Jansen

CUPE Ontario | Communities Care for Homecare - PSW Registry - 0 views

www.cupe.on.ca/...communities-care-homecare-psw

unregulated workers care aide home care registry regulation ontario

shared by Irene Jansen on 23 Jan 12 - No Cached
  • This past May, the government announced that they were going to establish a Personal Support Worker Registry. 
  • mandatory registry that it will be at a minimum a list of names
  • "grand parenting"
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  • all workers who are PSWs that are employed by publicly funded employers.
  • The Ontario government has established a Personal Support Worker (PSW) Registry. 
  • Initially affecting PSWs (and associated classifications) in home care, it is scheduled to roll out to long term care and hospitals
  • CUPE successfully fought for a seat on the Registry Steering Committee, but unfortunately, despite objections from CUPE and other labour representatives, employers and government consistently pushed the Registry in new directions for which there was no consensus. 
  • The Registry has been put under the leadership of an employer organization.   There is inadequate protection of the privacy of PSWs.    There is no fair process for the removal of PSWs from the Registry list – yet PSWs will not be able to work for publicly funded employers unless their name is on the Registry. The Registry also enables ‘self-directed care'.   The Registry has an "optional" section on the application form where PSWs can sign up to work for private individuals who receive funding through a parallel system to Medicare. The Registry is serving to help weaken Medicare as private individuals often pay workers less with poorer quality care.
  • CUPE Ontario and OCHU have stepped down from their seat on the PSW Registry steering committee
Govind Rao

Haphazard rollout stymieing PSW wage increase approved in Ontario budget ... Liberals m... - 0 views

cupe.ca/liberals-must-act-quickly-stop

from heather cupe ontario psw wages

shared by Govind Rao on 17 Sep 14 - No Cached
  • TORONTO, Ont. — A haphazard rollout is hampering many home and community care personal support workers (PSWs) from receiving the modest and long-overdue wage increase approved in the Ontario budget, charges the Canadian Union of Public Employees (Ontario/CUPE). What should be a good news story for tens of thousands of PSWs and for the provincial Liberals, is hitting significant problems with some home and community care agencies refusing to implement the first portion of the $4 an hour (over two years) wage increase for PSWs, says Candace Rennick, CUPE Ontario. “The provincial government did the right thing in raising PSWs’ wages. Now the Liberals must act quickly to address the rollout issues and honour the commitment they made to low paid PSWs in the last budget. We can only assume that the health minister and Premier are unaware that the wage increase they intended for PSWs is not reaching many of them,” says Rennick.
  • Govind Rao on 17 Sep 14
     
    sept 17 2014
Doug Allan

Shortage of personal support workers in Ontario home care feared | Ontario | News | Tor... - 1 views

www.torontosun.com/...rs-in-ontario-home-care-feared

PSW homecare

shared by Doug Allan on 02 Jul 13 - No Cached
  • She and a whole generation of PSWs like her, who look at the work as a vocation, will be retiring in droves over the next two decades. The Canadian Research Network for Care in the Community estimates that 45% of PSWs are over the age of 50 and may retire in the next 15 years.
  • “I’ve trained many, many girls over the years,” she said. “At the end of the day, they’ll look at me and say ‘I think you’re absolutely stupid. Why are you doing this when you can go into a facility and earn twice the money and you’re not running your ass off.’”
  • But already, the need for home care services is increasing. According to the Canadian Home Care Association demand for home-care services has increased across the country by 55% over the past five years. Seniors represent 70% of that demand.
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  • Stewart’s concerns are echoed by one of the country’s largest not-for-profit home care providers, the Canadian Red Cross. National director of health programs Lori Holloway says any plan to make Canada’s health care system sustainable has to include a human resources plan the focuses on retention, and that includes PSWs specifically, she said.
  • Stewart says being a personal support worker is far from a path to financial security. Workers who deliver home care make between $12 and $14 an hour on average. That compared to $17 to $20 an hour working in a nursing home or $20 to $25 an hour working in a hospital. Stewart says increasingly young workers train in home care and then leave. According to a study done by Personal Support Network of Ontario, 7,000 PSWs are trained every year in Ontario, 9,000 leave the profession annually.
  • The workers depended upon to deliver that front-line care in most cases are personal support workers. But according to Service Employees International Union Healthcare president Sharleen Stewart, who represents approximately 8,000 PSWs, their work is under-appreciated and under-funded.
  • Ontario Home Care Association executive director Sue VanderBent says the disparity between PSW wages has been created by a traditional view of the sector, which have always seen it diminished or funded after other areas like nursing homes and hospitals.
  • Doug Allan on 02 Jul 13
     
    Shortage of home care PSWs claimed in this story.  
Govind Rao

Think you have what it takes to be a PSW? | Brantford Expositor - 0 views

www.brantfordexpositor.ca/...-care-report-the-life-of-a-psw

from heather cupe ltc Ontario psw nursing week campaign

shared by Govind Rao on 11 May 15 - No Cached
  • May 8, 2015
  • You have eight hours. During that time you have responsibility for 8-12 frail residents, beginning with helping them out of bed, getting them washed, toileted, groomed and dressed, then transported to the dining room, all dependent on what kind of mood each is in today. At mealtime, you are helping two to three residents eat: some of them can't do anything to feed themselves.
  • Sometimes the job isn't very nice," said one former, long-time PSW.
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  • Today, you'll work short-handed, increasing the number of residents you're responsible for by 50%.
  • In some homes each PSW is also responsible for two baths a week for "their" residents. In other homes there's a "bath PSW" who does nothing but tub work.
  • As a PSW, you have to document too.
  • Don't forget to take your unpaid 30-minute lunch and two paid 15-minute breaks.
  • What do the front-line workers think about the current situation in long-term care homes? The CUPE union that bargains for healthcare workers, including personal support workers and registered practical nurses who work in nursing homes, held focus groups in five Ontario communities to try and gauge what the employees were facing. In a 66-page report released last fall, the key findings included the fact PSWs face dangerously high staff-to-resident ratios. They told stories of dealing with up to 15 residents per worker on day shifts and up to 42 residents on a night shift. The chronic underfunding and short-staffing is leading to a raft of injuries, infections, bedsores, abuse and unsafe work conditions, says the report. A lack of time, resources and staffing is leading to lax infection control, meaning that C difficile, MRSA and influenza are affecting both residents and staff. The report calls for implementing mandatory minimum staff ratios of one PSW per eight residents and the creation of segregated units and higher staffing for violent residents. The union is also pushing for better infectious disease testing and the use of more protective resources like gowns, masks and gloves.
Govind Rao

PSWs waiting for wage hike - Infomart - 0 views

www.fpinfomart.ca/doc/doc_display.php?key=pr|245142|nbng|20150411|218289169

from heather cupe Ontario psw wages

shared by Govind Rao on 13 Apr 15 - No Cached
  • The North Bay Nugget Sat Apr 11 2015
  • Personal support workers are still waiting for the $1.50 hourly wage increase promised by Premier Kathleen Wynne and the former health minister. The April 1 deadline has past. It is the second in a series of phased-in PSW wage enhancements to total $4 an hour. The final $1 increase is expected to be implemented in 2016. But according to CUPE, there has been no indication to community agencies that employ PSWs that health ministry funding for the wage increase is on its way.
  • The union says the premier admitted last year that PSWs are undervalued, and the government included the $4 hour hike in both its election platform and budget. PSWs were pumped to get this increase, but we've been told there is going to be a delay," said CUPE spokeswoman Stella Yeadon. If it would have been a different bracket of wage earners, the delay wouldn't be a big deal. But many PSWs have already spent that money on new shoes for their kids." The province has come under fire for the delay from various unions whose members are PWSs. The raise was well overdue and extremely welcome. Now the province should pay up," said Kelly O'Sullivan, chairwoman of CUPE's Ontario health care workers committee. The starting wage for non-unionized PSWs is about $12.50 an hour.
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  • The Service Employees International Union said it couldn't comment on the delay because it is looking for more information. The main thing we do know is that the raise will be retroactive to April 1. We championed this wage increase for 30,000 PSWs across Ontario which resulted in the $1.50 raise last year and the promised additional $1.50 this year," said Gilleen Witkowski, media relations for SEIU Healthcare.
Govind Rao

Nurses rally against job cuts at Almonte General Hospital - Infomart - 0 views

www.fpinfomart.ca/doc/doc_display.php?key=pr|245142|pgac|20150319|216702400

from heather cupe Ontario nurses nursing hospital cuts campaign

shared by Govind Rao on 19 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • Almonte/Carleton Place EMC Thu Mar 19 2015
  • Not all cuts heal. That was one of the messages written on signs held by demonstrators on Monday, March 16, who were protesting the Almonte General Hospital's (AGH) plan to cut 10 registered practical nurse (RPN) positions from their team of staff over the next few months. "We don't want to see these nurses lose their jobs," said Marie Campbell, a demonstrator whose husband, Bill Campbell, receives complex care in the hospital's Rosamond Unit. "There is an excellent level of care here, and we don't want that to change." AGH recently announced that,
  • in light of continuing budget challenges, they would be implementing a new model of care to the hospital over the coming year. The new model will introduce 11 personal support worker (PSW) positions and eliminate 10 RPN positions in an effort to reduce salary expenditures. "In this fiscal climate, the challenge is finding ways to live within our means while ensuring quality and safety are always at the forefront of the patient and staff experience," said Mary Wilson-Trider, the hospital's president and chief executive offi cer. "Embracing the addition of PSWs is in line with that." Hospitals across Ontario have been experiencing budgetary challenges for years, ever since the provincial government implemented funding cutbacks, Wilson-Trider said. This year, the hospital received a mere one per cent increase in their provincial funding, which Wilson-Trider said is not enough to cover mandated salary increases or to offset inflation on product and service costs.
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • "We've been managing our budgetary costs for years," she said, "but this is the first year we've considered staffing restructuring as a practice to balance the budget's bottom line." Since PSWs are trained for a smaller scope of work than RPNs, they are compensated at a lower rate. Wilson-Trider said it should be made clear that there will still be RPNs on the hospital's team. Though there will be fewer RPNs, the team of PSWs will work to lighten their workload by taking care of certain tasks. The restructuring of the care model for the hospital's Rosamond Unit is just one aspect of the changes made to the AGH's budget this year. During the winter months, AGH conducted an internal comprehensive review of the hospital's revenues and expenditures, looking for efficiencies and asking for suggestions from staff.
  • The review, Wilson-Trider said, had a target figure of a five per cent change to the budget's bottom line, either in increased revenue or decreased expenditures. The cuts to RPN positions will account for some of that five per cent change, but the review also found other areas to cut costs, such as supply cost savings and energy management practices. Also, the hospital reviewed their service costs and found that they were charging below the average for private rooms, something they've adjusted for 2015. "These changes are a way of living within our means from a budget standpoint while providing the least impact to current patient care and the patient experience," Wilson-Trider said.
  • Protest Anita Comfort, one of the RPNs whose job is being eliminated, has been working at AGH for 21 years. She's among one of many soon-to-be-laidoff RPNs who have been at the hospital for decades, and she says that level of dedication can't be replaced. "We know our hospital, we know our patients and we know how to care for them," she said. "There's simply not going to be the same level of care without us." Comfort was one of more than 30 demonstrators who marched the street in front of AGH on March 16, asking for honks of support from passing cars.
  • Affected RPNs, friends, family, union representatives and even patients came out to show their support, holding signs boasting messages such as "Cuts hurt everybody," and "My skills are vital to patient care." Linda Melbrew, president of the local chapter of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), which represents the RPNs, was present for the demonstration, showing the union's support for saving their jobs. "We're asking the hospital to reconsider their decision," she said, "and we're also asking for the province to provide better funding for our hospitals so something like this doesn't have to happen at all." Representatives from the Ontario Nurses Association also showed their support during the demonstration, holding signs and marching among the affected RPNs.
  • Cathy Porteous, another of the RPNs who will lose her job because of the cuts, also mentioned the hospital's appearance on the Sunshine List: a list of employees whose annual salary rates are $100,000 or more. She said she heard there are 10 such employees with the AGH. "Why can't they make cuts in that area," that's what we want to know," she said. "Instead of cutting from the front lines of patient care, maybe they should take a look at their own salaries." When asked about the Sunshine List later in an interview, Wilson-Trider said the hospital doesn't have 10 employees being paid more than $100,000 annually - instead, they have nine.
  • Those employees, she explained, are all high-level employees and not all of them are paid by AGH itself. Among those on the Sunshine List are the director of care for the hospital's Fairview Manor (FVM) and the manager for Lanark County Ambulance Services. "These managers are already stretched," she said. "Between managing the hospital and their accountability to the LHIN (Local Health Integration Network) and the ministry, they're stretched." Many of the demonstrators voiced another concern as well: that patients will not receive the same level of care with a team of PSWs than they would with RPNs. "The don't call it complex care for nothing," said Debbie Tipping, whose husband, like Marie Campbell's, receives care in the Rosamond Unit, also called the Complex Continuing Care Unit.
  • Since PSWs don't go through the same level of training as RPNs and therefore are not qualified to perform certain tasks, Tipping said she is concerned her husband's care could suffer. "We don't want to lose the nurses we've come to know and love," Campbell said. Patient care While Wilson-Trider said the AGH is appreciative of the work the affected RPNs have put in over the years, she also said that she thinks the new care model will benefit patient care. "I actually think that this will be good for patient care," she said. "The new PSWs will be there to support the RPNs, who will be working at their full scope of practice."
  • "Patient care," she added, "is of the utmost importance here, and we have taken every measure to ensure that that level of care is maintained." Over the next few months, as the new model of care is phased in and positions are jostled around, Wilson-Trider said that the AGH will be following the union's collective agreement and working with the union the whole way through. "We appreciate the commitment and high quality of care that all of our staff has demonstrated and continues to demonstrate," she said, "and we're also very appreciative of the care they've given to our patients." Illustration: • Kelly Kent, Metroland / On Monday, March 16, more than 30 demonstrators took to the street outside Almonte General Hospital (AGH) to protest the hospital's new model of care that will cut 10 registered practical nurse (RPN) positions from its team of sta . AGH's new model of care comes in light of budget challenges passed down from the province's freeze on funding. Some of the a ected RPNs, above, held signs reading "My skills are vital to patient care."
Govind Rao

Thousands of PSWs left waiting for promised wage increase as province misses its own Ap... - 0 views

cupe.ca/isses-its-own-april-1-deadline

from heather cupe Ontario psw wages

shared by Govind Rao on 07 Apr 15 - No Cached
  • Toronto, ON – Home care and community-based personal support workers (PSWs) were left in the lurch yesterday, waiting for a much anticipated $1.50 wage increase, promised to them by the Ontario Premier and the former health minister. The April 1, $1.50 raise, is the second in a series of phased-in PSW wage enhancements totalling $4/hour (over three years) that the provincial Liberals committed to. But as of yesterday, there was no indication to community agencies that employ PSWs, that health ministry funding for the wage increase is on its way. Michael Hurley, first vice-president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Ontario says there is “deep disappointment that the Liberals have not delivered on their commitment to PSWs. They have failed to meet their own April 1 deadline.”
Govind Rao

Demise of PSW registry gives province opportunity to get it right and end exploitation ... - 1 views

cupe.ca/exploitation-racialized-female

from heather psw cupe Ontario hospital registry care aide

shared by Govind Rao on 23 Feb 16 - No Cached
  • Jan 29, 2016
  • Toronto, ON – Now that the “ill-conceived” registry for personal support workers (PSWs) has been scrapped, the 20,000 PSWs represented by the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Ontario in long-term care, hospitals and community care are asking for the issue of regulation for PSWs to be made a priority.
  • “Despite this, the government’s economic interest has been to perpetuate the exploitation of PSWs in the home care sector by denying them effective self-regulation, available to most other occupations. Our expectation is equal treatment with Ontario’s other professions and trades,” says Michael Hurley first vice-president of CUPE Ontario.
Doug Allan

Second deadline for PSW Registry is cancelled - for now | OPSEU Diablogue - 1 views

diablogue.org/...-registry-is-cancelled-for-now

PSW registry

shared by Doug Allan on 27 Mar 13 - No Cached
  • There was a deadline of April 1, 2013 for the home and community care sector. On March 14th a letter was sent out informing employers that this deadline was no more
  • There was never any registration deadline for PSWs working in other health care sectors.
  • Doug Allan on 27 Mar 13
     
    OPSEU says PSW April 1 Registry deadline for home and community care sector has been withdrawn.
Govind Rao

Haphazard rollout stymieing PSW wage increase approved in Ontario budget | Canadian Uni... - 1 views

cupe.ca/crease-approved-ontario-budget

from heather psw wages cupe ontario

shared by Govind Rao on 18 Sep 14 - No Cached
  • TORONTO, ON — A haphazard rollout is hampering many home and community care personal support workers (PSWs) from receiving the modest and long-overdue wage increase approved in the Ontario budget, charges the Canadian Union of Public Employees (Ontario/CUPE). What should be a good news story for tens of thousands of PSWs and for the provincial Liberals, is hitting significant problems with some home and community care agencies refusing to implement the first portion of the $4 an hour (over two years) wage increase for PSWs, says Candace Rennick, CUPE Ontario.
Govind Rao

Minister vows quick action on delayed PSW pay hike - Infomart - 0 views

www.fpinfomart.ca/doc/doc_display.php?key=pr|246199|ntgm|20150512|220300486

from heather Ontario psw wages

shared by Govind Rao on 12 May 15 - No Cached
  • The Globe and Mail Tue May 12 2015
  • Ontario's Health Minister is promising a quick fix to problems that are holding up a pay raise for personal support workers, and says further changes are on the way to improve the homecare system. Health Minister Eric Hoskins, responding to a report in The Globe on Monday, said the government plans to announce the next $1.50-an-hour increase "very soon," as well as other reforms. "I think you will see in the near future, as well, we are going to be making some additional reforms to home and community care that will help to improve and streamline - whether it's the work PSWs are doing or others."
  • A $4-an-hour increase over three years was first promised by the Liberal government last year. An investigation by The Globe and Mail found the Liberal government has indefinitely delayed the second phase of its "wage enhancement," originally set to take effect April 1, while it scrambles to fix problems encountered in implementing the first part of the wage increase last year.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • The investigation also found that 27 mostly non-profit health-care agencies across the province are refusing to accept the government-funded increase and pass it on to their workers, while one of the largest privatesector employers of personal support workers in Ontario cut what it pays in mileage and travel time just after the first phase of the raise kicked in last fall, leaving some employees worse off than they were before the wage-enhancement program began.
  • The raise also has been more expensive than expected, costing the province at least $77.8-million in 2014-15, well above the $50-million earmarked for the first year of the pledge. Mr. Hoskins said he was surprised by the difficulties his government has encountered in implementing the wage hike. "I certainly wouldn't have predicted that this was as complicated as its turned out to be in some regards," he said.
  • The increase, when it is implemented, will be retroactive to April 1. Personal support workers deliver more than half of all home-care services, helping clients to dress, bathe, prepare meals, tidy up and manage medications, among other tasks, yet they generally make less and face more unpredictable schedules than their counterparts working in hospitals and nursing homes. Stabilizing the industry is key to provincial plans to shift an increasing portion of the care for the sick and the elderly out of expensive hospitals and longterm care facilities and into the home. Those efforts are being jeopardized by delays to the longpromised raises, opposition politicians said Monday.
  • This has been rolled out so poorly that it has created even more disarray in the home-care system," said NDP health critic France Gelinas. Without the promised increase, Ms. Gelinas said personal support workers will continue to leave the home-care sector, causing hardship for their clients. "At the end of the day, the most vulnerable in our community are the ones who end up stripping naked in front of a stranger every week because a different PSW comes and gives them their bath," she said. Bill Walker, the deputy health critic for the Ontario Progressive Conservatives, called delaying the second phase of the PSW wage increase, "unacceptable."
  • "[This is] yet another case of the Liberals breaking a promise," he said. "I mean they came out and basically said anything they could to get re-elected. They now have gone back on their word again ... they set the expectation high for those [PSWs] and now they're not coming through, once again." Mr. Walker was particularly incensed at the Health Minister's admission that the Liberals did not fully understand the complexities of the home-care work force or how those workers were paid before promising them a $4-an-hour wage hike just two days before introducing a budget that was ultimately defeated, triggering last June's election.
Govind Rao

Does Ontario have too many under-regulated health workers? - Healthy Debate - 0 views

healthydebate.ca/...health-professional-regulation

from heather regulation Ontario psw care aide

shared by Govind Rao on 05 Apr 16 - No Cached
  • by Wendy Glauser, Mike Tierney & Michael Nolan (Show all posts by Wendy Glauser, Mike Tierney & Michael Nolan) March 31, 2016
  • In recent years, various health care professions have called for better regulation – including paramedics, personal support workers, physician assistants and others. Inadequate regulation has led to confusion that can put the public at risk, representatives of the professions say.
  • For many paramedics in Ontario, the Emergency Health Services Branch of the Ministry of Health sets the rules around how paramedics transport people and provide basic care like managing wounds, while base hospitals delegate more advanced care activities like administering medications and inserting breathing tubes.
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  • Other non-RHPA occupations have less oversight. Personal support workers, who provide services including assisting with bathing, helping patients adhere to their medications and other tasks in the home, don’t have any provincial body to monitor their training or to ensure they’re practising appropriately, explains Miranda Ferrier, president of the Ontario Personal Support Worker Association (OPSWA).
  • these doctors tend to err on the side of under-delegation, knowing that if something goes wrong, they’ll be held accountable.
  • A personal support worker could be fired because of an accusation of abuse or neglect and they can literally get up and walk down the street and get hired by another agency and they wouldn’t know anything about it,” says Ferrier.
  • The OPSWA conducts a national criminal record and credential check for the 16,000 PSWs registered with them, but registration is voluntary. There are over 80,000 PSWs in the province who haven’t registered with OPSWA, Ferrier explains. “We would like to see one curriculum for all PSWs,” she says. “There should be expectations upon them for retraining and we should have the ability to blacklist ones that get charged with abuse.”
  • however. Chinese medicine practitioners were granted self regulating status in 2013 and naturopaths in 2015 – but not without controversy.
  • The problem is that not just in Ontario but broadly, in Canada, we’ve defined regulation in health care as self regulation and other countries don’t do that.”
  • UK and Australia
  • government oversight
  • New legislation should also allow smaller professions that can’t afford to maintain an RHPA-defined College to have title protection, says Grosso. And the voluntary oversight the professions currently do recognized legally, she adds. “When it comes to public protection, size should not matter,” says Grosso. 
  • Alberta’s government has overseen the development of a College of Paramedics,
Irene Jansen

Principles to Guide a PSW Registry in Ontario OCSA summer 2011 - 0 views

ocsa.on.ca/...RoundtableRegistryElements.pdf

care aide employer ontario

shared by Irene Jansen on 23 Jan 12 - No Cached
  • Irene Jansen on 23 Jan 12
     
    The launch of a provincial registry of Personal Support Workers in Ontario has the potential to improve protection for seniors and vulnerable populations and to help drive improvements in quality care by supporting appropriate training for PSWs. The province can ensure the registry is launched successfully and fulfills its potential by learning from the experience of other jurisdictions, drawing on the expertise and capacity of stakeholders, and observing these key principles. The following are some agreed upon elements for a Registry that were discussed at the second PSW Roundtable meeting of stakeholders held on June 17, 2011 in Toronto1 (attendees in footnote below):
Govind Rao

Letters to the Editor Column - Infomart - 0 views

www.fpinfomart.ca/...185065146

from heather Ontario home care strike union

shared by Govind Rao on 18 Dec 13 - No Cached
  • The Timmins Daily Press Wed Dec 18 2013
  • STRIKE HITS CLOSE TO HOME It's a very sad day when those charged with looking after the elderly and the disabled in our communities can't count on decent wages and benefits. Now, I'm not blaming the Red Cross Care Partners (RCCP) because I believe they are doing the best they can given what the government has done to home care services in this province. Home care in Ontario was opened to "competitive bidding" over the last number of years with disastrous consequences. There are now more than 1,000 agencies delivering home care services in the province, and there are four levels of administration before any funds actually get into the hands of the front line Personal Support Worker (PSW).
  • A unionized Red Cross PSW receives maximum pay of $15.02/hr, but only after three years on the job while a non-union PSW gets paid between $12.25 and $13.50/ hr. PSWs working in a nursing home get paid an average of just over $20/hr yet they all must have the same level of education. To top that off, time spent driving to or between clients is not paid and the distances can be quite significant for RCCP caregivers in the north. Mileage is only paid if travelling between clients. If you live in Iroquois Falls and your only client that day happens to be in Ramore, you won't get paid any mileage at all! Health care benefits are quite poor and can be lost if the worker fails to work the minimum 1,352 hours in any given year. Red Cross PSWs do not have a pension plan and most only work part time. Many people have accepted the myth that we had been over taxed for way too long and the "tax relief" we now enjoy has made us all the more prosperous.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • This is not the workers' fault.
  • BEN LEFEBVRE CHAIRPERSON NORTHEASTERN ONTARIO HEALTH COALITION
Govind Rao

Personal support workers across Ontario on strike - 0 views

www.insidehalton.com/...ntario-will-be-going-on-strike

from heather Ontario home care bargaining psw

shared by Govind Rao on 11 Dec 13 - No Cached
  • About 4,500 personal support workers (PSW) for the Red Cross Care Partners are on strike today. According to the SEIU Healthcare Union, PSWs have been in a strike position for several weeks and recently voted to reject a tentative agreement with the Red Cross. The role of PSWs consists of providing or helping with personal care for the elderly, people with physical disabilities in their home and those who live in long-term care and ambulatory care facilities. They also assist with home management. There are roughly 225 PSWs working in the Hamilton, Burlington and Niagara region according to senior communications officer, Gilleen Witkowski for the SEIU Healthcare Union.
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