Thank you very much. I'd like to thank the members of this committee for coming together to tackle what represents our generation's biggest challenge.
I have the honour of being invited here as president of the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions, but I'm also here to give a voice to the close to one million health care workers across Canada. We're all in this together. Regardless of whether your job is to keep the place spotless or to perform an intubation to a critically ill patient, health care delivery is and always has been a team sport. This means the recommendation your committee will be making to the Government of Canada impacts the lives of not only those who care for the sick in our country but also the lives of the millions of others who live alongside us.
I wish I could be here to recognize the strong work of the Public Health Agency of Canada and Dr. Tam's team, in which I include all the chief public health officers across the country, for what they have done in public awareness and education—and I stress “public”. People across Canada understand that they have an important role in flattening the curve of the outbreak to help the country out of this pandemic.
I wish I could be here to comment on the many initiatives the government has announced to support Canadian workers today and to kick-start our economy tomorrow. Unfortunately, I am not. I'm here to bring light to the sad and scary realities of our health care system.
As you know, the Public Health Agency of Canada was created in the wake of the SARS crisis. Since its beginning, it has taken its public health duties very seriously. However, workplace safety has never been PHAC's primary focus, and the agency has unfortunately failed, over and over, to consider and appropriately protect the health and safety of health care workers. That's why I'm here. It's to implore you to take a stand for the health care workforce by calling for the Prime Minister and the government to invoke the measures of the Emergencies Act to help our health care system survive this global pandemic.
The CFNU believes that the current situation in both acute and long-term care settings across Canada fits the law's definition of an emergency that rises above the ability of one province to cope, thereby representing a risk to other provinces. The time for our government to act is now.
You just heard Dr. Ovens say that government is only one voice among many. We are humbled by the gratitude government officials have expressed for our work, but gratitude will not save lives. Given the amount of uncertainty around this novel virus and the real threat to the safety of health care workers across Canada, CFNU is pleading with the government to designate, at a minimum, airborne precautions and the use of N95 respirators at all times in so-called clinical hot spots. These include intensive care units, emergency rooms, operating rooms, trauma centres and units for managing COVID-19 patients. Our goal is to make sure that health care workers are protected 100% of the time when they're providing care to those patients—well, I have to say, as close as we can get to protecting them.
We're also asking that you recognize the critical importance of point-of-care risk assessment: the idea that individual health care workers are in the best position to determine the appropriate PPE required, based on the needs of their situation and the interaction with the individual patient. I find it striking that as recently as a couple of months ago, government, employers and managers around this country respected the clinical and professional judgment of the health care team, both in identifying the most appropriate care for our patients and in determining what health and safety measures we needed to protect ourselves. Today the same governments, employers and managers are locking up personal protective equipment to keep it away from the health care workforce.
Shame on us all. We've clearly failed in our duties to those who care for the sick and the vulnerable.
CFNU's view, and that of numerous experts we've consulted with, is that the government's approach fails to recognize the fundamental importance of the precautionary principle and its guidelines. Nurses and doctors sadly learned from our experience with SARS that the precautionary principle must be applied. We lost two nurses and one doctor with SARS, and that was with 44 deaths in all. Today, between 10% and 15% of those infected with COVID-19 are health care workers.
This is not fearmongering; this is the reality on the front line. We want decision-makers to understand that no infection prevention and control guidelines and PPE measures can be developed and implemented without working with unions and joint occupational health and safety committees. Until the Public Health Agency of Canada's guidance document for acute care facilities for COVID-19 is updated to reflect our various serious concerns, we are encouraging all health care workers to follow the letter of the law when it comes to occupational health and safety, and that is to report any hazard and protect their own health and safety.
I shared with you by email the joint statement issued by the Canadian labour organizations that represent all health care workers. It calls on the Public Health Agency of Canada and all provincial health offices to protect health care workers and their patients by adhering to the precautionary principle. In a nutshell, our message to you is this: When faced with this level of uncertainty around the new coronavirus, especially around something as fundamental as how it is spread, we should start with the highest level of protection for health care workers, not the lowest.
As members of the health committee, you are all well aware that our health care system is already running over capacity. We simply cannot afford to erode staffing levels any further by having health care workers become sick or having to self-quarantine. Front-line workers across the country who are directly involved in the care of presumed and confirmed COVID-19 patients are not being provided with the PPE they need to do their jobs. This is simply outrageous and unacceptable in a world-class health care system like ours.
However, there are examples of best practices that are beginning to appear across the country. Joint agreements between unions and employers to respect the clinical judgment of health care teams have now been signed in British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario and, last night, in New Brunswick. In Quebec, Newfoundland and Alberta, uniforms are being provided to those caring for COVID-19 patients. In Nova Scotia, we are seeing new measures being developed to assist the long-term care sector.
Some see the shortage of PPE supplies as the driving factor behind regulations advocating the use of surgical masks over N95 masks. CFNU and other health care unions have offered to work hand in hand with government to address the PPE supplies issue and to ensure their appropriate use, but we need transparency, honesty and leadership from our governments.
To conclude, you may be aware that I started my career as a critical care nurse in beautiful New Brunswick. Since then, medical technology has come a long way, but one thing that hasn't changed is that as health care workers, we cannot anticipate and plan for every situation. Patients who are anxious or in respiratory distress cannot be expected to be calm. Patients won't always cough into their elbows, nor will the nurse always have the opportunity to maintain a two-metre distance from a patient. Machines fail, and human error is an unfortunate reality.
Quite simply, unpredictable and unforeseen circumstances are part of working in the health care environment. That is why, as a society, we need to protect our health care teams. Unlike many of us, they don't have the luxury of working from home. As policy-makers, we have to respect their clinical judgment, because ultimately, it's the health care workers who will be providing care for one of our loved ones.
Thank you.