Privatization, Precarity, Profit: Healthcare Unions Speak Up for Home Care Services
ONA President Erin Ariss, RN, stood in solidarity with OPSEU President JP Hornick, CUPE Ontario President Fred Hahn and COPE Ontario Interim Director Glenn Wheeler to alert Ontarians to the considerable and irreversible damage the Doug Ford conservative government's Bill 135 will do to Ontario’s home-care system.
This Bill further erodes public provision of care towards for-profit service providers who already make up the bulk of home care in the province. These services will be hived off from public oversight to OHTs and the new superagency without local oversight.
There are anticipated issues with agencies also being in charge of assessment of care, coordination of care, provision of care, and oversight of care. Providers who have existing contracts will also find themselves competing in jurisdictions and areas they were not formerly contracted to do work, reducing the certainty of workers where they work and can be assigned shifts. Many questions remain unanswered how this changeover will happen.
Increased privatization and lack of oversight are not the answer.
The healthcare staffing crisis will not be solved by another high-level reorganization.
Read the full media release about this disastrous bill on the ONA website: https://www.ona.org/news-posts/20240508-unions-home-care/
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