I'll just back up a bit to where Lou left off.
Lou mentioned that the first COVID-19 outbreak in long-term care in Canada occurred in the Lynn Valley Care Centre in B.C. Twelve years ago, staff at this facility were members of our union. Staff had decent working conditions, pay and benefits. However, in 2002, changes to the province's labour code opened the door to privatization and eliminated union successorship rights. If a service was contracted out or home ownership changed hands, workers' collective agreements no longer formed part of the deal. Thirty years of positive wage and other gains were totally gutted. Workers were terminated en masse and others were forced to reapply for jobs at half their former wages, with fewer benefits and far fewer sick days. Recruiting and training staff has been an uphill battle for Lynn Valley.
The casualization of the long-term care workforce is predominant and growing across Canada, especially as the number of for-profit, long-term care homes increases. Because they're paid low wages, care aides across Canada work multiple jobs in order to cobble enough hours together to pay the bills. The pandemic has drawn attention to this issue since long-term care staff who work in multiple homes have unwittingly spread the virus between facilities as they've moved from job to job to job. Several provinces have issued orders restricting staff to employment at a single work site as a temporary measure intended to protect residents.
Another serious problem that staff in long-term care face is injury, both from musculoskeletal injuries which result from heavy lifting and repetitive strain, as well as from workplace violence. In B.C., injury rates for the long-term care sector are four times higher than the average provincial injury rate. Workplace violence is also a serious everyday health and safety issue for long-term care workers. A poll conducted in Ontario showed that 90% of care aides and registered practical nurses have experienced physical violence in long-term care settings.
Because the system is characterized by low wages, precarious jobs and high levels of injury and violence, it's extremely difficult to recruit and retain workers. As a result, long-term care homes have been dangerously understaffed or short-staffed for over a decade. When staff call in sick, they're often not replaced by another worker, and the remaining staff on shift must add more work to their already heavy workload. When this occurs, staff rush from resident to resident to perform care. For residents, this means they may not receive their baths, their call bell may go unanswered or they may sit or lie in a soiled diaper for hours. When workers don't have adequate time to perform necessary tasks, the quality of resident care suffers.
In B.C., Retirement Concepts purchased the largest chain of for-profit, long-term care homes in the province in 2017. Since then, public health authorities have taken over the administration of four of these homes. Wages were so low and the workload so impossibly high that it could not recruit or retain staff. In a survey conducted by HEU, staff at one site reported their staffing ratio at night was as low as one care aide for 75 residents. Residents were reported to routinely go without their weekly bath or without being toileted in a timely manner. Health authority staff were redeployed to each site to stabilize the situation.
With high numbers of long-term care workers testing positive for COVID-19 and needing to self-isolate, the difficulties employers have to fully staff homes has been compounded. Provinces across Canada have asked retired health care workers to return to service to help out. Hospital staff have been redeployed to fill in the gaps. With the situation so bad in Ontario and Quebec, the provinces' premiers requested and are receiving assistance from Canadian Armed Forces medical personnel.
It's unacceptable that our governments have allowed the conditions in long-term care to deteriorate to such a great extent. The pandemic has shown Canadians how fragile our long-term care system has become from underfunding, understaffing and a political willingness to allow the profit-making interests of private companies to trump the public interest when it comes to the provision of care for our most vulnerable. It's time for our governments to take meaningful action to improve the conditions of work and the conditions of care in facilities across the country.
CUPE and HEU members offer the following recommendations to the committee.
First, the federal government must work with the provinces and territories to bring long-term care into the Canada Health Act and make it a core, publicly insured health care service that is publicly administered, accessible, universal, comprehensive and portable.
Second, the federal government must provide dedicated and adequate funding to the provinces and territories for long-term care through the Canada health transfer.
Third, the federal government must implement and enforce the national standard of a minimum of 4.1 hours of directly worked, hands-on care per resident day and tie the standard to funding.
Fourth, governments must work collectively to eliminate the private, for-profit ownership of long-term care homes. Private corporations and shareholders should not profit from people's medical needs, and governments should not put their health up for sale.
Fifth, long-term care homes must stop the contracting out of services to for-profit companies, such as front-line care, laundry, housekeeping and food services. All services should be provided by in-house staff to enhance working conditions and quality of care.
Sixth, the wages of workers in long-term care must be standardized and increased to reflect the value of their work and their role in providing an essential service, especially for care aides. Workers should be provided good benefits, including adequate paid sick days.
Seventh, the casualization of the long-term labour force must be eliminated through the creation of full-time regular jobs for workers who want them.
Finally, by 2035, it's expected that Canada will need an additional 199,000 long-term care beds. Hospitals have long operated well over capacity because there aren't enough long-term care beds for individuals who are unable to live independently in their own home. This situation became more alarming when hospitals had to rush to find ways to handle the expected influx of COVID-19 patients.
The pandemic therefore reinforces how urgent it is to increase the number of long-term care beds across Canada in order to alleviate capacity problems in hospitals and to ensure individuals receive the appropriate care they need when they need it. Public funds should be available to build new beds, and the facilities must not be designed or operated as P3s.
Thank you very much. Both Lou and I welcome any questions you may have.