New report gives immigrant health-care aides platform to speak out on COVID working conditions

A new report is using the stories of immigrant women working as health-care aides in Calgary's long-term care homes to shed light on the extreme pressures of the job and areas that could be improved in the future.

The report, titled 'More Than Just a Health Care Aide: Immigrant Women Speak About the COVID-19 Crisis in Long-Term Care', is a collaboration between University of Calgary sociology professor Naomi Lightman and the Calgary Immigrant Women's Association, in conjunction with the Parkland Institute.

It hears stories of dirty, demanding, high-risk jobs with workers facing huge financial and mental health pressures, working on the front lines of COVID-19, usually for poor pay and working conditions.

"This is one the first reports that really tries to centre on the voices of the workers that are really doing the essential work in long-term care. They were really struggling in terms of their physical and mental health," said Naomi Lightman, a sociology professor with the University of Calgary.

The women all spoke in confidence with no risk of being identified.

The women say they struggled financially, working under rules that restricted them to a single workplace to limit cross-contamination of  COVID-19, severely impacting their pay with some workers struggling to cover their rent and car payments and stopping payments that many send home to family in other countries.

"As long as they were struggling financially they said any rhetoric around gratitude was not terribly meaningful," said Lightman.

Health-care aides are usually underpaid compared to hospital workers and many struggle financially, often working multiple part-time jobs with no benefits.

Another theme was the increasing mental and physical demands of the job during COVID, along with the stress of becoming infected themselves or worrying about that happening.

"Also many of them were working at a time when many residents died in fast succession and that was difficult. They've had feelings of loss and helplessness that have stayed with them," said Lightman.

Lightman says some also reported being blamed by residents and families for bringing the virus into care homes with some facing racism.

The workers also reported chronic mismanagement in institutions with poor rollout of personal protective equipment and the reluctance of employers to provide full-time employment for aides. They also spoke about being silenced and excluded completely from any decision making around their own jobs and work.

"They're doing the on-the-ground jobs every day, but they noted they hadn't been included despite having concrete suggestions for changes," said Lightman.

The interviews were carried out online by the report's research team between Jan. 1, 2021 and March 30, 2021. 

"We hope the working conditions could be improved because in some cases I thought it was inhuman to ask people to work in those conditions," said Marie-Solange Evehe B, with the Calgary Immigrant Women's Association.

Evehe says aides reported having too many residents to care for with huge time pressures placed on workers. She says women also reported moving from COVID-infected wings to non-COVID wings throughout the day, risking the safety of workers and residents. Many contracted COVID themselves.

"These ladies were not heard. They don't have the power and they are just being told what to do and very often just by email," said Evehe.

Evehe says workers said there often wasn't enough protective equipment for staff and sometimes they were accused of stealing items if they took any extra masks. She says some say they never received extra money promised to them for working through the pandemic. Others say they were forced to use vacation days when they were home sick with COVID. 

"That was really insulting," she said. "They deserve to be treated better than they're being treated."

The report includes 12 policy recommendations around increasing compensation and protections for health-care aides in the future, including paid sick days, along with better oversight and transparency.

It also calls for higher staff-to-resident ratios, eliminating the use of casual staff, health and mental health benefits and increased government inspections.

The report references and reinforces the provincial government's review of continuing care, which was released this spring.