SYDNEY, N.S. — A Cape Breton home-care worker says she and other workers have been compromised by someone who was at risk for exposure to COVID-19.
If a close contact of a client is being tested for COVID-19, they are still required to go into the home and provide services until the test results are in, she said.
The worker, who wished to remain anonymous, said they all deal with the elderly and some do have confusion issues and they find out, once inside, that a family member with signs of COVID-19 had been there.
“So after being with someone whose family member has been tested, from there we’re going from client to client to client,” she said. “I’m very worried. I could easily be passing it along now.”
The worker said after arriving at a client’s house she has to phone the client and ask certain questions before entering to ensure they haven’t traveled or have COVID-19 symptoms.
If they answer ‘yes’ to anything, they explain they can’t go in and their supervisor deals with it.
However, the worker has discovered clients aren’t always honest.
“I’ve gone in to find out through conversation that family members who had been away have been visiting.”
The worker says some clients are scared if isolated, their home-care services will be temporarily stopped and they’ll lose their seniority spot for care. If a client is off the schedule 21 days, to get it back the client has to call and reapply.
“They’re scared they will have to go on a waitlist to get it back.”
The home-care worker said they need the province to step in and guarantee their client’s spots. They also need the province to step up and protect them going into these homes.
“Our shoes, our gloves and our hand sanitizer, that’s all we are allowed to take in with us,” she said. “We’re not allowed to take gowns and masks.”
The home-care workers provide all the services they always did despite the COVID-19 crisis, from housekeeping to meals, respite and personal care but with the COVID-19, feel all they should only be doing is essentials.
Another home-care worker, also working in the Cape Breton Regional Municipality, is also going in homes with no protection but Lysol wipes.
“We’re told the masks and other personal protection equipment are being saved for health-care workers,” she said. “It’s like they are sending us into a lion’s den empty-handed and merely hoping we’ll escape.”
When asked about the home-care workers during a recent teleconference, Nova Scotia Premier Stephen McNeil said Nova Scotia’s Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Robert Strang spoke of protocol for health-care workers going into a hospital, the same applies if a home-care worker is coming into our home. The premier said the province would not move a client out of the home-care system because they had to prevent the home-care worker from coming into the home while they self-isolate or address circumstances around that.
“Of course we wouldn’t do that,” he said. “But we need everyone to be upfront and honest about their own circumstances, their family’s circumstances. Because ultimately, we want to move through this as quickly as possible, we want to protect one another. It’s absolutely critical that we be forthright and honest all the way through the steps of the system.”
Strang said they have provided guidance to home-care agencies in the expectation they would flow that down and provide the necessary training and education supports for their frontline staff.
Strang said he feels all home-care workers work with what’s necessary for the client, some of it is health-care needs but it might be personal care needs or some attention to their living environment so it’s clean, they have meals, those kinds of things that are important to help people stay in their homes as long as possible.
“That hasn’t changed just because we’re in the era of COVID-19,” he added.
Jason MacLean, president of the Nova Scotia Government and General Employees Union (NSGEU), said home-care workers are not getting any respect from the Department of Health.
“They are getting dumped on.”
MacLean said the home-care workers, cleaners and others are at the most risk and not being given proper personal protection equipment.
“It’s not that they don’t have it to give to home-care workers, the home-care workers are not respected enough to be given it,” he said. “They are asking for it and being told no.”
The province says they only have a certain stockpile of equipment that will only last for so long, MacLean said.
“They won’t tell how much they have like it’s a big secret,” he said. “They are taking care of our society’s most vulnerable and keeping them in their home and out of the hospital.”
One of their agencies in Cape Breton puts their workers out in the field with a baggie of five Lysol wipes.
“They consider that as having adequate PPE (personal protective equipment),” he said. “Our workers are looking after people only a week home from travel. They are emptying hospitals as much as they can and it’s the home-care workers who have to look after them without PPE.”
He said they have 10 local home-care employers. Last Thursday, one of them notified five of their members they had been in a home where someone had tested positive for COVID-19.
“They are put off work and are now being tested. On Friday, there were six more.”
MacLean said there are so many things happening that are scary. In one instance, a home-care worker contacted their supervisor to see if they should go home and change after getting stuff on their scrubs while with a client but was told to turn their pants inside out and go on to their next visit.
There have had members inform them situations including a client confirming they are alone and the home-care worker showing up to find visitors.
“We’ve told our members to end the visit then and to go home and call your agency,” he said.
As well, MacLean said homecare workers are not recognized in society as they should be. Some service stations are offering $10 off gas to health-care workers and he says will not include home-care workers.
“What do they think these workers are doing? It’s shameful.”
MacLean said people don’t enter home care to be rich, they do it for their love of helping people.
“They are the unsung heroes of the health-care system. They are keeping people in their homes.”
