Editor:
Our community health-care workers deserve a fair deal. The ongoing crisis in our hospital facilities is a consequence of the chronic underfunding of the vital community health-care sector.
This undervaluing of community-based health care puts unnecessary and costly stress on our entire health-care system.
We cannot expect to meet the increased demands of an aging population, and crises such as the pandemic, without a fair deal for workers that provide critical health-care services in our communities. We also cannot expect to reduce the strain on our facilities without investing in the community health-care services that lessen the need for acute care in hospitals.
For too long, these vital community health-care workers have been an afterthought when it comes to allocating health-care resources in B.C. The consequences of this are being felt every day: facilities operating above capacity, a recruitment and retention crisis, burnout and a decreased standard of services despite the best efforts of underpaid and overworked people.
This should not be a surprise given that these workers make some of the lowest wages anywhere in health care in Canada. We urgently need to invest in our community health-care workers to bolster our entire health-care system.
As bargaining resumes, the B.C. provincial government and the Health Employers Association of B.C. must be ready to negotiate a fair deal for community
health-care workers.
Dylan Webb, president, CUPE Local 4816
