Ontario home care nurses demand same pay, benefits as hospital counterparts

Canadian Press
Sep 8
1 min read

By Staff The Canadian Press

Posted September 8, 2025 12:52 pm

Hundreds of home care nurses say they want to be paid the same as their counterparts in hospitals, as bargaining on a new deal gets underway.

The Ontario Nurses’ Association says it is asking the Victorian Order of Nurses for fair pay for home care nurses, who have to deal with a wide variety of issues other nurses do not.

They say data from the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board shows nurses have experienced 2,100 violent workplace incidents in homes over the last two years.

The union’s provincial president Erin Ariss says the rate of workplace violence is five times higher for those working in home care than for their counterparts in other nursing sectors.

She cites other risks nurses face on the job, such as visiting homes alone, driving lengthy distances between patients and caring for far too many patients to properly visit and treat all of them each day.