5 minute read
Working as a PSW during the Pandemic
Jennifer Cassius is a Personal Support Worker (PSW) and UFCW Local 175 Union Steward at Chartwell Colonial Retirement in Whitby.
Jennifer comes from a family of healthcare workers. Her mother worked for more than 30 years at Centenary Hospital in Scarborough. Her grandmother, who passed away recently, also worked in the same hospital for more than 40 years. She has aunts and uncles in the sector, and her brother is a firefighter. Even her father’s work at a pharmaceutical plant is now part of managing this pandemic as that facility is helping store fridges for the mRNA vaccines.
Jennifer Cassius: PSW & Union Steward at Chartwell Colonial Retirement speaks over a Zoom call about working as a PSW during a pandemic.
“I love what I do,” says Jennifer. “I was working in retail management but I made the decision to switch to healthcare and become a PSW,” she adds, saying she gets a great return from putting out care and service to residents who appreciate the help.
Recently, Jennifer took on the role of Steward at Colonial Retirement and enjoys being able to speak up for her co-workers.
On being a PSW
“We call ourselves the Jacks of all Trades,” she says. “We pretty much do everything, especially in the retirement homes.” On a daily basis, Jennifer and the other PSWs at Colonial Retirement are responsible for admitting residents and guests, administering medications under a licensed nurse, doing laundry, cleaning the facility, and engaging with residents.
On top of regular duties, PSWs are responsible for screening, checking in residents, handling and delivering drop offs from families like personal items when they don’t have any extra staff to cover the front desk. Plus, all the high-touch surface areas require more frequent and more intensive disinfecting. All of this is done wearing full PPE which requires more frequent changing.
Like many retirement care facilities, there are residents in crisis, people who are exit-seeking, and those wandering in and out of the building. “Our residents don’t understand and we don’t want to stop the care so it’s a challenge to find time to make sure everybody’s safe and that we’re doing what we’re supposed to be doing while maintaining the care for the residents. It’s very hard to find the line now between retirement homes and long-term care,” she adds.
“We completely understand that this is not the residents’ faults – this is their home. But it’s difficult to do all this and maintain a very independent living style and know that there are people who need more one-on-one care than we can provide. Then you add the heightened precautions and duties of the pandemic on top of all that and it’s exhausting.”
Morale has been a challenge for some, too, with ever changing direction from public health. Staff then have to explain the changes to residents who may not be cognitively aware, and their families who are forgetful or misunderstand the rules.
On top of all of this, essential workers like Jennifer are always concerned about the health and well-being of their own families too. Workers at the retirement home are subject to regular COVID-19 swabs and do their due diligence to minimize exposure.
Like thousands of workers, Jennifer’s children were home most of the last year, needing Wi-Fi and other items for remote schooling. “Everything is more expensive,” she says, adding “we need to make sure we’re stocked up on groceries all the time. Personally, when I go out, and I know a few other co-workers who do the same, we try to buy in bulk because we don’t know when we’ll get another chance to go out.”
On pandemic premiums
Jennifer and her PSW co-workers at the retirement home received only the first round of pandemic premiums from the province from April to August 2020, and nothing since.
“We do have homecare that comes in to assist with residents and they may have 15 minutes to get a resident into bed at night,” explains Jennifer. “Those homecare workers get the premium. But when that resident refuses care, the works falls on us to do it.”
In the subsequent wage top up announced in October 2020, and extended twice since then, PSWs in retirement homes were not included in the plan.
Jennifer took her questions about the premiums to her Member of Parliament (MP). The MP indicated that the perception of retirement homes is that they’re for people who want to be independent but don’t want to cook or do laundry any more. Jennifer says this is far from the truth.
On our healthcare system
“It’s frustrating,” Jennifer continues. “There’s so much room for improvement in our healthcare system. A lot of staff feel very unappreciated. A lot of the time, the one-on-one care, the routine, the day in and day out services for these people is being done by us.”
“We’ve lost some residents because they didn’t make it into long-term care and it’s very sad to see that happen,” says Jennifer.
Jennifer says this crisis is “a wake-up call to the world about how broken our system is. There were so many ways in which we could make improvements even before this pandemic. I remember when SARS was around, and my mother was working at Centenary Hospital which was one of the first ones hit with SARS. That was our first brush with it but we’ve had prior knowledge of the situation in healthcare that we could have been prepared for this.”
Jennifer’s husband is a unionized glazer and has been helping put up retirement homes in the Whitby area. “There aren’t enough beds, not enough rooms for these people to go to,” says Jennifer.
Thank you, Jennifer, for your dedication and hard work, and for being a valued member of your Union.
