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Ontario Regional Director Samia Hashi, Health Care Director Kellee Janzen, and Assistant to the National Officers Kelly-Anne Orr kicked off the first leg of across-country tour with stops in Ontario, including Windsor, Chatham, Port Elgin, Kitchener, and Toronto.
“We’re meeting directly with frontline health care and social service workers to check-in and hear first-hand about the current state of our health care system. What we’re hearing is that workers face extreme burnout, short staffing, and concerns about long-term care home employers not meeting the 4-hour standard of care brought into legislation last year. Workers, and the patients and residents they care for, deserve better,” said Unifor Ontario Regional Director Samia Hashi.
In April 2024, an internal government report showed that Ontario long-term care homes may not be able to meet the direct care target of 4-hours per resident per day due to staffing shortages—and a year later, Unifor members report that employers are failing to come close to the care target.
“Unifor members in health care and social services continue to struggle with working short staffed, making the 4-hour target impossible to reach,” says Assistant to the National Officers Kelly-Anne Orr. “Employers continue to tell workers that they don’t have the funding needed to recruit and retain staff, raising serious concerns about the province’s ability to meet the care needs of seniors.”
Unifor members in health care and social services are also experiencing increased violence on the job, with factors such as short staffing, long wait times, and organizational issues like inadequate resourcing and infrastructure contributing to the prevalence of increased violence at work.
In 2023, Unifor’s Ontario Regional Council launched a national campaign titled Save Ontario Health Care that mobilizes people across the province to protect and strengthen Ontario’s public health care system. The campaign opposes the Ford government’s push to privatize services like surgeries and diagnostics, detailing how privatization has drain resources from public hospitals, deepened staffing shortages, and increased wait times. Unifor is calling on Ontarians to join the fight during the federal election campaign by demanding that elected officials and candidates commit to increased investment in public, not-for-profit care and end further privatization.
“The bottom line is that provinces like Ontario need to stop the cuts to health care, end further privatization, and increase funding so that health care and social services can staff up to meet patient needs,” says Unifor Health Care Director Kellee Janzen.
Unifor’s health care and social services tour will continue through to fall 2025, with more stops in Ontario, including northern Ontario, along with Nova Scotia, British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan.
