I think Carole Estabrooks has done a ton of work on this. I'm so thankful to all the people who have been working on these issues for decades.
The first one is staffing. As I said in my testimony, this sector has been chronically understaffed for decades. Family and volunteers were the glue that held it together. When they were forced to leave it fell apart. As I also said, it was not a surprise to us. In Ontario, the Registered Nurses' Association of Ontario and others have been advocating for a four-hour minimum of direct patient care per day. That's a really good beginning. We need the staffing levels to be increased. We need proper funding for this sector. We need proper training for PSWs. I was talking to the doctor at Grace Manor yesterday and he asked why Sheridan College and others don't have programs for PSWs in long-term care? It's specialized.
As we've heard in today's testimony, it is a specialized skill to care for older adults with complex needs. We need standards of care, and they need to be the same across the country. B.C. did great. Early in April they increased salaries for people who are chronically underpaid, which made it possible for them to work in just one home. They did really well in testing, but it's so uneven across the country. We really need those national standards. Start with adequate funding and with the staffing ratios. Other things can come in the medium and the longer term, but for now we need to support those core staff. The military came in and that was fantastic, but they don't have the relationships. The most important thing is the relationships with the residents. That's what the core staff have. We need to support those core staff who know the residents, who know what they need so they're not run off their feet.
This has been known for decades. We knew this before COVID. There's no excuse for why this isn't happening now.