On September 24, 2024 SEIU-West sent a letter to Mike Northcott, Deborah Moynes-Keshen, Erin Hess, and Ashley Anderson as follow up to the Walk a Day in My Shoes, which took place on July 30, 2024 at the Davidson Health Centre.
September 24, 2024
Sent via email
Mike Northcott
Chief Human Resources Officer, SHA
Deborah Moynes-Keshen
Executive Director Partnerships and Workforce Planning
Ministry of Health Government of Saskatchewan
Erin Hess
Director, SHA
Ashley Anderson
Manager, Davidson Health Center, SHA
Dear Mike, Deborah, Erin and Ashley,
Re: SEIU-West Walk a Day in My Shoes – July 30, 2024
On behalf of SEIU-West and our members at the Davidson Health Center, I want to thank you once again for making the time to meet with us to talk with our member, Tammy Evans, about the retention and recruitment issues we are experiencing in the Continuing Care Assistant (CCA) classification. It was a good opportunity to illustrate for decision makers within the SHA the impact of short staffing on front line staff, but also to make the connection for what that means for patient, client and resident care.
To refresh your memories, Tammy identified the cost barriers to accessing education to become competent in the CCA classification. The tuition for the CCA course through Saskatchewan Polytechnique is approximately $8,560 for a two-year diploma—books and other related costs are extra. That is a significant investment on the part of an individual who wants to work in the healthcare system. It was also identified that the wages of CCA’s are not keeping up with inflation. Compensation is often a consideration for those seeking a career path. The cost of this course creates a significant barrier to attracting new staff and keeping current staff who are working without the qualifications. This corresponds to the number of new hires that are considered ‘conditional’ and have a set period of time to achieve the required qualifications.
Tammy also walked us through the typical day of a CCA. In doing so, she also talked about staffing levels that haven’t changed over time to meet the more complex needs of her residents. The level of care required for Level 3 and 4 residents is much more intensive and needs additional time and compassion in order to be done adequately. Adequate is not what we should be aiming for because our residents, patients, and clients deserve better than adequate care - they deserve quality care that is delivered with respect and dignity. We are not affording the residents or the staff the time to do their work properly, let alone consider the day- to-day changes that a resident with complex health needs will experience.
Tammy and Ashley were very eloquent discussing the issues of short staffing in this facility. I commend Ashley’s efforts to assist where possible, but the fact remains that staff are working quite a bit of overtime to provide quality professional care. This is the experience of most of the rural facilities that I visit, if not all of them. Davidson, as an integrated facility, experiences this in unique ways due to their location on one of the busiest highways in Saskatchewan – staff are pulled from the long-term care side to assist in the Emergency Room and on the acute side of the facility.
While we talked about the needs related to CCA’s, that same experience of short staffing, mounting overtime hours and increased exhaustion and burnout of staff can be replicated across many other classifications: lab personnel, environmental support workers, cooks, and trades and maintenance staff.
The opportunity in front of us, as SEIU-West sees it, is to commit to a joint health human resources roundtable that includes the Government of Saskatchewan, the Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA), education institutions and front-line workers, through their unions. It is only in this context that we can truly share the responsibility for identifying the problem and jointly committing to a solution that will turn the tide on a health struggling to provide world class professional healthcare.
A key component of this roundtable should be including First Nations and Metis organizations who are providing education but also because of the growing population of this sector.
We need to commit to minimum staffing levels and that means staffing levels need to change. A review of the hours of care for level 3 and level 4 residents should be done as soon as possible. And we must invest funding in front-line staffing to meet those needs.
We can meet this moment by joining efforts in recruiting new staff via job fairs. Erin spoke about attending job fairs, as does SEIU-West does – but we are not combining our forces for the good of your staff and our members. We can and we must do this better; with the intent to create a workplace that is attractive to new hires, but also for our current staff. Tammy was very correct in stating that improvements to wages would significantly improve our ability to attract staff, but also retain those who have significant institutional knowledge, experience and the ability to mentor. We simply must do better than a provincial website that posts jobs.
There is much we can agree on: we are in a difficult moment within our healthcare system and staffing is a fundamental concern for all of us. Costs continue to rise but are we truly investing in the people who provide the care?
SEIU-West looks forward to talking with the SHA and the Ministry of Health further about the opportunities we have identified.
Respectfully,
Barbara Cape
President and Grievance Committee Chair
SEIU-West
BC/hd USW 5917
Cc: Minister of Health Everett Hindley
Minister of Rural and Remote Health Tim McLeod
T. Goodheart, Union Representative, SEIU-West
Y. Sagayo, SEIU-West Unit Chair, Davidson Health Center
T. Evans, SEIU-West CCA, Davidson Health Center