Resilience shines on the front lines of pandemic home care

As we close to the two-year mark of our ongoing struggle in opposition to COVID-19, I'm reflecting on my second anniversary as a brand new CEO within the residence care sector. I can’t assist however be impressed by the resilience displayed every day by my group as they supply 1000's of weak Ontarians, principally seniors, the assist they should proceed residing at residence.

There may be a variety of fatigue, frustration, and stress within the residence care sector — simply as there's amongst different well being care suppliers on the entrance traces because the pandemic drags on, fuelled by the extremely infectious Omicron variant.

It’s troublesome typically to not really feel overwhelmed or anxious if you end up already finishing up extraordinarily difficult and vital work — offering the nursing and private care wanted to maintain individuals of their houses and out of hospitals and long-term care services, whereas additionally contending with some of the critical well being crises of the previous century.

However doubtless, of all the things I’ve seen and skilled over the previous two years, what stands out most is the resilient spirit and compassion of my 3,000 residence care group members who proceed to seek out new and artistic methods to ship the care their sufferers want, greater than 75,000 instances each single week. And but, regardless of the vital position residence care performs in our broader well being system, it continues to fly largely beneath the radar.

I’ve been lucky to have a singular perspective on the pandemic as a model new CEO of one among Ontario’s largest residence well being care suppliers. After spending greater than 20 years in management roles throughout the sectors of worldwide electronics and automation manufacturing, nearly seven years in the past I shifted gears and transitioned into the house care sector.

The primary wave of the pandemic was simply gathering power as I started my present position at Spectrum Well being Care. My first day on the job in March 2020 coincided with the day Ontario declared a state of emergency and imposed a lockdown to sluggish the unfold of the virus. As an alternative of holding conferences to introduce myself to members of our management group and workers, I used to be working with our leaders to ship our department workers residence to start distant work and guarantee we had adequate PPE to maintain our front-line well being staff secure.

Within the worry and confusion that dominated the early days of the pandemic as we had been simply studying about COVID-19, lengthy earlier than the arrival of any vaccines or medicines, all of us needed to overcome obstacles and adapt to new methods of working and galvanizing our groups.

This was positively not the best way I needed to begin my very first CEO position — constructing relationships with group members just about by means of screens reasonably than in individual. Nonetheless, we had been all united and energized by the identical rally cry — delivering prime quality care whereas nonetheless maintaining our purchasers and workers as secure as doable.

We talked about security daily again then, as we nonetheless do now, and we discovered the way to proceed delivering care successfully as circumstances round us continued to evolve and alter with new public well being measures, new virus variants and different adjustments within the broader well being sector which have impacted residence care supply.

Making certain we've got sufficient private assist staff, nurses, and different well being staff to take care of sufferers has been one of many best challenges we’ve needed to confront all through the pandemic, and which is able to proceed to be one among our high priorities within the years forward.

The house care sector has been coping with a persistent scarcity of well being staff for a few years, and it’s solely gotten worse through the pandemic — partly as a result of our present degree of provincial funding doesn’t enable us to pay PSWs and nurses the identical charges they will earn elsewhere within the well being system.

On the similar time, demand for residence care is rising quickly. A current ballot by Dwelling Care Ontario discovered 96% of Ontarians over 55 stated they plan to remain of their houses so long as doable. At Spectrum alone, the variety of residence care hours we're servicing has jumped by about 15 per cent, in comparison with our pre-pandemic caseload.

Our group has rallied in response to the elevated demand. We’ve develop into extra environment friendly and extra keen to embrace new methods of doing issues to make sure our rising listing of sufferers are cared for as we ramp up recruitment and retention efforts to develop our group. And we’ve all the time remained targeted on the significant influence we will have every time we stroll right into a affected person’s residence to offer them care.

Regardless of the challenges and unknowns the pandemic holds in our future, the resilience and keenness our group brings to work daily fills me with confidence and optimism for what we will accomplish, not simply inside Spectrum however throughout the total residence care sector.

Within the years forward, our particular person houses will develop into one of many main settings the place sufferers shall be cared for as they age. I’m inspired that there's rising recognition of the vital position residence care serves in our well being system and the necessity to assist the overwhelming majority of Ontarians retain the independence and high quality of life they deserve.