By Cynthia Herron
The Ontario Ministry of Health has
been touting the governments increase in funding for personal support worker
home care services. Personal support workers and their union say there
are troubles brewing.
Many personal support workers who
provide home care to elderly clients and those with disabilities feel that they
are underappreciated and overworked. According to several personal
support workers who provide homecare, they feel like they have the lowest paid
college-educated job out there. The difference in pay between personal
support workers who provide home care and those who work in healthcare
facilities is substantial, and the result of those workers for institutions
being unionized.
The union representing personal
support workers have identified the competitive bidding process where contracts
to serve clients at home go to the lowest bidder as another threat to the care
provided. They cited a recent study by the DeGroote School of Business
that found that when contracts for providing home-based personal support worker
services changed hands, nearly 67% of personal support workers who were laid
off left the profession completely due to the upheaval it caused them.
The Ministry has indicated that while they were not
willing to make any guarantees, they were not currently considering lifting the
current moratorium on competitive bidding, but they are reviewing this issue.
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