OTTAWA - Clients face growing waits for physiotherapy while an agency contracted to provide care is poaching clients for its own private care business.
The Ottawa branch of the Victorian Order of Nurses (VON) is signing up private home care clients at $108/hr instead of reducing the ever-growing backlog of clients from the Ottawa Community Care Access Centre (CCAC).
The CCAC backlog is so bad that critical patients, including recent hip surgery recipients, face three-week waits for physiotherapy.
“This is completely unacceptable,” says OPSEU President Leah Casselman. “The Ottawa VON is contributing to a crisis in service to build their private clientele. The CCAC should cancel their contract with VON now, and take back therapy services for the Ottawa area.”
Therapy visits delivered by the Ottawa CCAC have fallen 47 per cent in the past year. Patients who can pay are turning to the VON to jump the queue.
Physiotherapy, occupational therapy and social work were once provided directly by the CCAC. These services were sold to the private sector despite this costing about $500,000 more per year for taxpayers.
The service was first contracted to Kaymar Rehabilitiation Inc. When Kaymar in turn lost the contract under the much-criticized competitive bidding process, the workers faced a choice of leaving their contract and working for the VON at a 30 per cent reduction in pay. When few did, it created an instant crisis.
“The competitive bidding process is bad for patients. It has distorted the way even respected non-profits are operating,” says Casselman. “The actions of the VON are completely unethical.”
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For more information, contact Dave Calvert at 613-296-6503
