The Chronicle Herald (Provincial)
Can’t blame support workers for feeling undervalued
Double the cleaning. Double the sanitizing. Double the laundry.
Kayla Legge’s workday as a support worker at Harbour View Haven, the long-term care facility in Lunenburg, had already been super busy. Then COVID-19 hit. To combat the virus, to try and keep residents safe, literally meant doubling down on cleaning protocols.
Many pandemic restrictions have been relaxed in recent months, but her housekeeping and laundry workload hasn’t eased off a bit.
Legge says she likes her job, working with elderly people. She’s been at Harbour View Haven for 11 years. She says she could see herself working there until she retires.
But she doesn’t know how much longer she’ll be willing to do it for her current salary. No doubt she’s not alone. CUPE staged rallies at 27 LTC facilities across Nova Scotia on Monday to highlight the inadequate wages of thousands of vital support workers at provincial nursing homes.
That includes dietary and kitchen staff, laundry, maintenance, recreation and other support positions.
Government neglect of nursing homes has been a national disgrace decades in the making.
COVID brought that to the fore, especially early on. Who can forget when the military, called in to assist in Quebec, often discovered elderly residents living in appalling conditions?
Even prior to the pandemic, horror stories had emerged from Nova Scotia’s longterm care facilities, including deaths due to untreated bed sores.
The previous provincial Liberal government made a big show out of asking an expert panel to study the state of long-term care, then failed to act on one of its most pressing recommendations — better compensation for those who worked with our country’s most frail citizens.
The new Progressive Conservative government has made major strides in addressing the problems in long-term care.
Most pointedly, in early February, they moved to dramatically increase wages for continuing care assistants up to $25 an hour, the highest rate in the region. They also began to fully cover tuition for CCA training.
Due to low wages and a dire shortage of CCAS, meaning more work for those on the job, many had been leaving the sector. That, in turn, made things worse.
The new government’s initiatives stopped the bleeding, at least. CCAS, however, remain in short supply.
But Tim Houston’s government did not, at the same time, address the low wages of people like Legge.
It’s now been almost five months since it unilaterally – outside of collective bargaining – did the right, and smart, thing to ensure CCAS were more appropriately compensated. Support workers are still waiting.
CUPE Nova Scotia president Nan Mcfadgen says it’s been challenging to hire support workers in long-term care, especially in areas where there’s plenty of alternative employment, but it’s gotten even harder since CCAS got the big raise. And morale, of course, has been hurt.
Michele Lowe, executive director of the Nursing Homes of Nova Scotia Association, told me that while there have been some shortages, filling vacant support worker positions has not been as difficult as finding CCAS..
But facilities are now finding it’s becoming more of a struggle, particularly for dieticians, she said.
“People have more options now for employment and are not as willing to work in LTC for wages between $15- $17 an hour,” Lowe said.
That’s particularly true as inflation has started to really bite, a pain disproportionately felt by those with lower incomes.
The provincial government has made noises about appreciating support workers at long-term care facilities.
Seniors and Long-term Care Minister Barbara Adams issued another such statement Monday, stating wages were a matter for the negotiating table while emphasizing the respect the government has for LTC support workers.
But, as Mcfadgen pointedly said on Monday, “they don’t accept respect at the gas station or the grocery store.”
It’s got to be tough on support workers’ morale, working alongside CCAS who last winter deservedly got raises of up to roughly $9,000 per year while they, historically also chronically underpaid, got nothing.
Deliberate or not, the message that sends is not one of respect, it’s of being undervalued.
People working at nursing homes are a team, Legge says. They just want to be treated that way.
“I don’t think they could do this work without us.”