LTC staff need better pay, support to ensure safety of residents: experts

As more than one-third of Ontario’s long-term care homes are reporting outbreaks, healthcare experts say the lack of basic employment supports for staff, like paid sick days and a living wage, are contributing to the spread of COVID-19.

“This is why we’ve seen such a huge challenge during this pandemic in Ontario, where so many of these workers … are bringing COVID-19 into the homes,” says Dr. Samir Sinha, Director of Geriatrics for Sinai Health System. “Frankly, a lot of folks don’t have a choice of taking a day off, but they really don’t have great sick benefits to begin with.”

Sinha says the majority of the about 100,000 personal support workers in long-term care or institutional settings are part-time staff, rather than full-time. He says that makes a key difference to the number of sick days a worker gets.

“A full-time unionized worker will get 10 to 14 days paid sick leave every year. A part-time worker, you only have to give them about one to three days of paid sick leave,” he explains. “It creates what we call a ‘moral hazard’ because all of a sudden now, these folks really have [to make] a decision where if you have a bit of a sniffle or a symptom that might be COVID-like and you’re told to stay at home and not come into work that day – that might just mean a day without pay.”

Staff shortages were an issue even before the pandemic. The province has pledged to spend up to $1.9 billion every year by 2024-2025 to create 27,000 full-time equivalent jobs in the sector.

In a statement to CityNews, the Minister of Long-Term Care’s office also said they’ve enhanced testing requirements in homes to reduce the risk of the virus coming in from the community and allow homes to detect COVID-19 cases earlier.

But the head of Ontario’s Long-Term Care Association says that’s not a perfect solution.

“Although we are doing weekly testing in the lockdown zones, the grey zones and testing every other week in the other zones, people can be tested one day, and two days later test positive — but they don’t get their test for another week,” says Donna Duncan, CEO, Ontario Long-Term Care Association. She notes that a lot more staff are testing positive in the second wave.

“We spent over $5 million a week testing these people to try to see if we can keep COVID-19 out that way,” Sinha adds. “What would work far better, is if we actually just paid them a living wage. Number one, because you’d recruit more people and keep more people in these homes, and number two, actually give them proper sick benefits.”

Further compounding the issue, Sinha says because of low pay, part-time workers are more likely to be living with multiple people, in neighbourhoods that are hotspots. They may be spreading the virus at home and in a care centre, making community transmission a big concern.

In the fall of last year, the Ontario government invested $461 million to temporarily increase long-term care worker pay by $3 an hour. That measure is set to expire on March 21, but could be extended.

With 216 of Ontario’s 626 care homes currently experiencing active outbreaks, Duncan adds the government’s response to COVID-19 is moving too slow.

The biggest active outbreaks in the province are currently at long-term care centres in the GTA.

As of Tuesday, St. George Care Community in Toronto has 81 residents who are sick, six have died and 51 staff members are infected.

Tendercare Living Centre in Scarborough has 59 resident cases, 68 deaths and 18 infected staff members.

In total 2,830 Ontario long-term care residents have died since the beginning of the pandemic, including 35 on Monday. Eight staff members have also died from the virus.