Good afternoon.
I am Barb Nederpel, the president of the Hospital Employees' Union, also known as HEU. Our union represents more than 50,000 health care workers across the province, including 20,000 who work directly in seniors care.
Joining me today are Maria Dreyfus, a care aide in a Fraser Valley long-term care home; and HEU's occupational health and safety director, Georgina Hackett.
Thank you so much for the opportunity to speak with you about the devastating impact COVID-19 has had on those working on the front lines of this pandemic, which is, in addition to everything we've heard so far, for the general public.
Health care work is largely women's work. About 85% of our members are women, and this workforce is also highly racialized. Our members were exhausted, stressed and at a high risk of injury well before the pandemic. COVID has shone a light on the very difficult working conditions in long-term care especially, and it has exacerbated this situation immensely.
On March 7, a resident at Lynn Valley Care Centre in North Vancouver passed away from the COVID-19 virus, the very first COVID-19-related death in Canada. Since then, there have been hundreds of outbreaks in B.C. care homes, and the majority of the 1,172 COVID-19-related deaths in B.C. have been of care home residents.
We know that the impacts of stress on mental health are cumulative, so 11 months of working long hours, being short-staffed, living in fear and in worry, and seeing so many of their residents die and their co-workers test positive for COVID have taken a serious toll on our members' mental health.
On top of everything else, our members in long-term care are working in a sector that has been racked by privatization and contracting out under the former B.C. Liberal provincial government. Wages and benefits vary greatly across the sector, a circumstance that forces workers to hold multiple jobs just to make ends meet. In fact, one in every five workers in our care homes holds two or more jobs in the sector. While the province has levelled up wages as part of its public health order to limit workers to a single site, many workers still have inadequate paid sick leave. Lack of access to decent-paying jobs and inadequate sick leave are also causing stress for our members.
As we saw with the SARS outbreak 17 years ago, we are seeing only the very tip of the iceberg at this time. Mental health impacts can last for years, and our members are really struggling. We are concerned about what the future holds for them, about our ability to retain workers in this sector, and about the impact on employee benefit costs.
Maria is here to tell you about her first-hand experience with being on the front line.