This week, Janann Blackburn lost half her staff — not because she had or wanted to, but because she wanted to keep people safe.
Blackburn is the executive director of Cheshire Homes, which provides care services for 17 people with physical disabilities and independent living units for 10 more.
Because some of her residents have underlying medical conditions, she assumed the provincial order restricting nursing and personal care home staff to one site — a measure to prevent the spread of COVID-19 between workplaces —would apply to her. Cheshire is “an anomaly” among its peers, she says, in that it provides services similar to long-term care. Twenty-seven of her 60 staff also work at other long-term care facilities
But when she printed and read the public health order, she realized it doesn’t apply to organizations licensed under the Residential Services Act, like hers.
She decided to follow it anyway, which meant losing half her staff — a move she says employees agree was right, but that she worries may put her “in the wrong” from a union perspective.
“When everything is said and done, I’d rather ask the question if I did too much than sit and mourn the loss and ask if I could have done more,” she said.
Provinces including Saskatchewan have moved to “cohort” long-term care workers to prevent deadly outbreaks between facilities like those seen in B.C., Quebec and Ontario.
But unions say members who work in long-term care also often work in grocery stories, retail outlets or communal homes for people with intellectual disabilities or psychiatric conditions.
“We have members who work at the health authority and work at a group home. But we’re not clear on where the line is there,” SEIU-West President Barbara Cape said.
Long-term care homes, which operate under the umbrella of the Ministry of Health, are generally tailored to seniors but may also house other populations needing full-time care. Group homes generally operate under the auspices of the Ministry of Social Services.
In a statement to the StarPhoenix, executive director of community living service delivery Bob Martinook wrote his office was working with the Ministry of Health to “ensure that group homes that provide services to persons with intellectual disabilities have good understanding about the recent public health order, and how it may impact their organizations.”
A Ministry of Health spokesperson said they were working with their partners in social services to keep all vulnerable populations safe but were not considering expanding the public health order at this time.
Staffing struggles
Blackburn’s predicament speaks to the challenges of managing the travel of part-time and casual workers between facilities caring for the country’s most vulnerable residents.
The Saskatchewan Health Authority reached a deal with five health care unions to enable cohorting and make temporary exemptions to collective agreements to allow for more flexible staffing, something SHA CEO Scott Livingstone noted “has never been done on a provincial basis” on Tuesday. He emphasized it was no small feat and required close coordination and flexibility.
The deal means long-term care workers who work at more than one home — who Livingstone estimates make up roughly 20 per cent of all staff in that sector — can pick a preferred home and won’t lose any guaranteed hours.
“We are working with them to ensure that, in terms of their pay, that they are at no disadvantage, based on where they end up working through the cohorting strategy,” SHA emergency site operations lead Derek Miller said Tuesday.
Saskatchewan Union of Registered Nurses President Tracy Zambory says it’s a good deal. But she believes casual employees present a challenging blind spot.
Such employees have no benefits. While it’s possible they will be able to pick up more shifts after cohorting, thanks to the movement of staff, they have few actual guaranteed hours.
“A casual’s life can be a bit scary,” she said.
The number of staff shared between group homes and long-term care varies. Some long-term care and group homes have policies that employees have to disclose other workplaces. The Ministry of Health says it does not know at this time how many workers in health or long-term care also work at other communal homes.
Cheshire, Blackburn stressed, is unique in that its residents’ needs and that not all homes licensed under the Residential Services Act are necessarily at the same amount of risk from a COVID-19 outbreak.
But what many 24-hour facilities share is a reliance on casual staff — people who can fill in odd and on-call shifts.
Certified care aids in the SHA, Cape notes, are usually paid in the realm of $23 a hour, which she believes is why working multiple jobs is so common. Blackburn says Cheshire, a non-profit, pays between $16.45 to $19.54.
“This is not the gravy train,” Cape said.
Zambory believes an “over-reliance” on casual workers in long-term care has made it extremely difficult to implement cohorting.
“It’s unfortunate that it took a pandemic for us to have more fulsome conversations around long-term care,” Zambory said. “But it is what it is and we’ll take it.”
