This past weekend, this province marked a particularly grim milestone, with its 10,000th death attributed to COVID-19.
Despite making up only a quarter of Canada’s population, Quebec has accounted for nearly half of the deaths caused by the pandemic. The vast majority of these dear departed were residents of long-term care facilities. Thousands of families across the province and the rest of Canada have had to say goodbye through an iPad screen, if they got the chance at all.
There’s plenty of finger-pointing and blame shifting that will inevitably play out over the next few months and years, but there’s one takeaway that’s already clear.
We need to . . .
change the way we treat our elders and our disabled population.
Prior to this pandemic, THE EQUITY was covering the labour shortages and rising levels of overtime affecting the staff in Pontiac’s health care facilities. The amount of extra hours put in by workers have quadrupled since 2014, according to documents this newspaper acquired through several access to information requests.
Why exactly does our small local hospital have to pay out more than a million dollars worth of overtime hours in a year? Same goes for the more than $500,000 per year of overtime in Pontiac’s three public long term care facilities.
Thankfully, we’ve avoided any viral outbreaks, but our staffers have still had to struggle through without a full squad to rely on. Why is that? Why is it that our society undervalues the efforts of workers in long-term care, and health care more broadly?
In the city, where the virus is more prevalent, the regional health authority CISSSO has implemented mandatory overtime. Over-burdened, stressed-out people are more accident prone and more likely to leave the system altogether. This isn’t a long-term strategy, it’s a band-aid on a gunshot wound.
Perhaps it can partially be blamed on our proximity to a region that pays more for the same work. Perhaps it’s because Quebec City has shorted the Outaouais region on health care spending for years. Perhaps it can also be chalked up to the fact that this kind of labour is largely carried out by women, both paid professionals and unpaid family members.
Whatever the causes, it’s a damning indictment of our society and its priorities.
With an election looming around the corner, these issues need to be at the top of the list. On top of all the death, suffering and the burden placed on our frontline workers, there are still more problems festering in the background. Patients are still waiting for elective surgeries or cancer screenings that were delayed. There will also be a massive need for mental health supports as this global crisis drags on into its second year.
As the saying goes, your health is your wealth, which is kind of funny considering we’re one of the poorest and unhealthiest counties in the province. If this region is ever going to bounce back, especially with an aging population, we need to make health care the number one priority.
Caleb Nickerson
