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.Message from the President and First Vice-President/Treasurer: Meeting the challenges – both ordinary and extraordinary
Being a health professional working in the community is never easy, but the heart and the desire to help those in need is what drives professionals to continue doing what they do so well. We’re only now coming out of a year and a half of turmoil from the worse public health crisis in many decades. This has made a tough job even tougher, with the majority of COVID deaths taking place among residents of long-term care facilities. Sometimes the challenges get bigger because of bad management and bad decisions. Take the Black Creek Community Health Centre. The courageous members who work there, almost all racialized women, were put through a gruelling six-week strike because the executive director was refusing to give them a one per cent wage increase – despite the fact that the government had made the extra funding available. But they stood strong and united, achieving the wage increases they’d been fighting for, and more. More widely, many community health professionals are grappling with the government’s latest attempt to fix community health care by rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic. It’s called the Connecting People to Home and Community Care Act. The legislation has raised more questions and problems than it has solved. Know that we understand these added challenges to your professional and personal lives. OPSEU/SEFPO is with you, and supports you as you navigate these changes while continuing to do your best to provide services to your clients. We’re all in this together, but some – like you – are in it more than others. On behalf of OPSEU/SEFPO’s 180,000 members and Ontarians everywhere, thank you for all you’ve done for the vulnerable and others in need – and what you’ll be called upon to do in the coming months and years. The selfless dedication you consistently demonstrate is an inspiration to us all. We hope you’ll be able to take some much needed down-time this summer to recharge your batteries and reconnect with family, friends and your community. In solidarity, Warren (Smokey) Thomas, OPSEU/SEFPO President Eduardo (Eddy) Almeida, OPSEU/SEFPO First Vice-President/TreasurerHealth care worker survey finds mental health compromised when workers feel unsafe
A web-based survey of health care workers conducted by the Institute for Work and Health and Occupational Health Clinics for Ontario Workers Inc. examined the relationship between the perceived adequacy of personal protective equipment (PPE), workplace-based infection control practices (ICPs), and worker anxiety and depression. The survey found very high rates of anxiety and depression among health care workers who had less or poor access to PPE. Workers who felt that ICPs were less adequate also had higher levels of anxiety and depression. Access to quality PPE and ICPs is key to protecting workers from infection. However, poor or substandard implementation of these health measures was found to further compromise the mental health of health care workers. The results of this survey can support locals and units to hold the employer accountable for strengthening employer-based ICPs and to taking initiatives to proactively monitor the mental health of health care workers throughout the pandemic. You can learn more by reading about the survey online. More information about the connection between a lack of PPE and anxiety and depression can be found in The Conversation.Health and safety: what we can learn from COVID-19
Terri Szymanski, OPSEU/SEFPO health and safety officer; Marc Casey, OPSEU/SEFPO negotiator
Health and safety inspections often focus on the physical condition of the workplace, when they should also include Infection Prevention and Control (IPAC) principles as well. While public health strategies are based on “acceptable risk”, employers have a legal obligation to take all reasonable precautions to protect the health and safety of their workers. According to the “precautionary principle” in Ontario’s Occupational Health and Safety Act (OHSA), “When faced with occupational health and safety decisions, the Employer will not await full scientific or absolute certainty before taking reasonable action(s) that reduces risk and protects workers.” Although this principle is stated in law, it can also be useful to negotiate it into collective agreements. Communication among local and unit union leadership is key to enforcing, monitoring and proactively bargaining new health and safety language. Joint health and safety committee (JHSC) representatives, highest-ranking, the local executive committee and the negotiation team should all be communicating on a regular basis to share information, advocate for change and bargain health and safety language into collective agreements.Health and safety language for collective agreements
Examples of health and safety language that can be tabled in bargaining include:- Training and upkeep will be done by the employer with regard to protective clothing, equipment or devices.
- Point-of-care risk assessments will be performed before every patient interaction.
- The employer will maintain adequate stocks of PPE in preparation for a pandemic.
- Organizational risk assessments should include measures to mitigate the transmission of infections.
- Staff who are required by public health or the employer to stay away from work after a positive test for an infectious disease or exposure to a positive individual shall have paid leave for this time.
Update on home and community care support services
Effective April 1, 2021, our members working in the LHINs transitioned to a new employer entity named Home and Community Care Support Services (HCCSS). Patient-direct employees will continue in their roles under the new employer name. Also effective the same date, members not providing direct patient care moved with their collective agreements to Ontario Health. OPSEU/SEFPO continues to make the following recommendations:- Completely withdraw this legislation and begin again with fulsome public stakeholder discussions.
- Directly fund and operate home care in Ontario to provide greater stability to the sector and increase quality of care.
- The government should not rely on an expansion of the direct-funding model.
- The government must properly allocate funding for home and community care.
- Sections of Bill 175 that remove or relocate public interest protections and oversight to the regulations must be removed.
- Address the fundamental problems with Ontario Health and the Ontario Health Teams related to public democratic oversight, and engage with health care stakeholders and labour organizations to improve these systems.
- maintains the same regional identifiers as existing LHINs (e.g., Erie St. Clair, Central, Champlain and North Simcoe Muskoka); and
- are governed by a common set of cross-appointed board members with a streamlined leadership team starting in summer 2021. The membership of these boards will eventually be distinct from the board membership of Ontario Health.