For Immediate Release
30 March, 2023
NL NDP Leader Jim Dinn is questioning the government’s understanding of realities people are facing and the struggle to make ends meet, or the inequalities causing health care workers to feel undervalued. Dinn says the recently announced increases for personal care attendants (PCAs) and other healthcare professionals doesn’t go far enough.
“I have to ask if workers in long term care are better off before Budget 2023 and the raft of announcements.” Dinn asked. “If the reaction from workers is anything to go by then the answer is a resounding ‘No’.”
“What was announced this week doesn’t keep up with the cost of inflation and leaves workers worse off than they were before the COVID-19 pandemic,” Dinn said. “This haphazard approach to compensation isn’t balanced across workers and it’s creating more tension in the workplace. How did government think this would be anything less than insulting to workers in healthcare?”
While government is trumpeting record spending in healthcare, there appears to be no budget allocation to implement recommendations for the Human Resources Plan for Health, which was promised in March 2022. The report is due in October of 2023 and is meant to guide health authorities so that they can address the workplace conditions that are driving workers to quit.
“There is no added funding to implement the Human Resources Plan for Health. There’s no meaningful effort to address the crisis of space in long-term care. We are not dealing with the issues that make staff leave,” said Dinn. “If government was willing to finally do the hard work required to retain workers, we would have expected to see some commitment in the budget to implement the Human Resources Plan for Health – especially since the report is due halfway through the fiscal year.”
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For further information, contact Eddy St. Coeur, Director of Communications, NDP Caucus at 729-2137 (o), or eddystcoeur@gov.nl.ca