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The Ontario Public Service Employees Union pledges to work with
communities in heading off the next phase of bidding for home care
clients.
Health Minister David Caplan waited until after the
legislature recessed before announcing Dec 15 the controversial lifting
of the latest moratorium on home care bidding. Contract bidding is
scheduled to resume in the fall of 2009.
OPSEU’s Victorian Order of Nurses (VON) members in Niagara and
Hamilton have been at the forefront of battles that resulted in two
moratoriums to the competitive bidding system in 2004 and 2008.
“Ontario is the only province that handles home care in this way,”
says Warren (Smokey) Thomas, president of the 130,000 member public
sector union. “It is a bad Harris-era idea that has failed in delivering
quality care, in saving money, or retaining workers in the system.”
The union is disappointed the health minister chose to ignore an
expert panel which toured the province last summer listening to
caregivers, patients, families, non-profit agencies, community groups
and the public.
“The latest changes fail to address the flight of workers, which has
been at the heart of these battles,” says Thomas. “What nurse would want
to remain in a system where they are thrown out of a job every time a
contract changes over and asked to seek new employment at a lower rate
of pay, fewer vacation days, loss of pension, and fewer, if any
benefits?”
OPSEU says competitive bidding has been a continual race to the
bottom that has not served clients well.
In Hamilton, where nurses at the VON and St. Joseph’s Home Care were
on the cusp of losing their jobs last January, that flight has
continued. Last week the Hamilton CCAC had to acknowledge that no
agencies were accepting referrals as a result of nursing shortages. If
home care agencies are incapable of accepting referrals, patients have
little choice but to remain longer in hospital or seek accommodation in
a nursing home.
The urgency to accommodate hospital patients in the Hamilton area has
resulted in some patients being transferred to hotels and visited by
home care nurses.
The announcement also comes on the heels of a criminal case where a
69-year old stroke victim was abused by an ex-girlfriend and her
companion under the nose of a private home care agency contracted by a
Community Care Access Centre.
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