Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and honoured members of the committee.
I'm Christina Bisanz. I am the CEO of CHATS, Community and Home Assistance to Seniors. I want to thank you for the invitation to be here, and especially to thank Mr. Van Bynen for his encouragement and requesting this opportunity for me to speak with you today.
Your study of labour shortages, working conditions and the care economy couldn't be more timely, and we sincerely thank you for making this matter a priority.
CHATS supports approximately 8,500 seniors and their caregivers across York Region and South Simcoe by providing a full continuum of home care and community services. Our mandate is to advocate for and deliver high-quality home and community supports to enable our clients to have the dignity and choice to age at home. We believe that older adults live best at home and in their communities.
There is an abundance of evidence to demonstrate that this goal is entirely possible with the right supports in place. Keeping people at home significantly alleviates pressure on hospitals and long-term care, but our ability to recruit and retain the necessary frontline workers is severely threatened, and we are facing a crisis in care that has only been made worse by the pandemic and the public policy response to it.
The staffing crisis in home and community care is not new news. For years our sector has been sounding the alarm with the low labour supply of personal support workers and other staff. We're seeing increased retirements due [Technical difficulty—Editor] workforce that is not being replaced through new enrolments in PSW programs. Half of new graduates leave the sector entirely due to working conditions and low pay. The lack of guaranteed hours and the part-time, shift and weekend work make it challenging to earn a decent income. A vehicle is required to drive long distances to serve multiple clients, especially in rural areas, and mileage reimbursement has not kept pace with fuel costs, especially now. Frontline staff in home and community care are the lowest paid in the entire health care system.
Recently the Ontario Community Support Association, which represents CHATS and over 200 other non-profit organizations, conducted a member survey that showed that staff vacancy rates for 2021 had nearly tripled. PSWs and nurses are leaving the community sector in droves, many to other sectors where there are incentivized opportunities to shore up their income.
It makes little sense that workers in a sector that has shown an incredible ability to support people to stay in their own homes are barely considered in health human resource planning or funding.
Public policy decision-making continues to disregard and overlook the value, efficiency and effectiveness that home and community support services deliver to the health system and to the quality of life of the persons served.
For example, the Ontario government recently announced additional hands-on training opportunities and further incentives for more PSWs and nurses in the long-term care sector. We all agree that our health care system is in dire need of many more well-trained staff to help address the tremendous resource challenges, but by announcing these incentives for PSWs and nurses in long-term care only, the provincial government is amplifying the very staffing issue that is eroding the health care safety net of home and community services.
What does that say about the value we attach to the frontline heroes who enable people to live in their own homes rather than in more costly long-term care institutions and hospitals? In Ontario, billions of dollars are being pumped into building more and more long-term care beds, with little investment being considered to reduce the need for some of those beds in the first place.
By ignoring the impact of such decisions on equitable workforce resource allocation, the home and community sector is hit dramatically on the recruitment front, placing greater demand on burnt-out health care workers, overwhelming family caregivers, exacerbating wait-lists for services in the community, and increasing risks and costs to the most vulnerable in our society.
This committee can demonstrate the leadership we need for a comprehensive health human resource strategy that builds capacity across all sectors, so we can meet the growing demand for services that keep people living well at home and in their communities. However, getting there will require collaboration among the sectors and all levels of government to address [Technical difficulty—Editor] as one comprehensive continuum, rather than looking at our health human resources in silos.
I thank you and look forward to your questions.