When the Ontario government injected much-needed money into the primary care sector for retention and recruitment, my coworkers and I were cautiously optimistic about what that meant for our wages and livelihoods.
Many of my coworkers and I have worked at North York Family Health Team for years, many over a decade. We’ve worked through pandemics, outbreaks and even a seven-year wage freeze all to support over 95,000 patients in our community. We specialize in providing comprehensive team-based primary care for everything from mental and physical health to chronic disease management.
We love our jobs and the patients we care for, but the sad reality is that we’re being costed out of living and working in Toronto.
Our stagnant wages have made it hard, especially in recent years, to recruit and retain nurses, diabetes educators, social workers, pharmacists and other workers. Many qualified and skilled practitioners have declined job offers due to the low wages.
Many of my coworkers have also contemplated leaving their jobs to work in other health-care settings where they can get paid better for doing the same work. We simply cannot afford to work in primary care anymore.
You can imagine our shock and frustration when our board of directors decided to use the new provincial funding — intended for retention and recruitment — to make up for their own financial mismanagement and budget deficit. While many family health teams across Ontario have used this new money for well-deserved wage increases, our managers came to us with zero per cent.
Appalled. Angry. Hurt.
So many words come to mind when I think about this. Especially since our previous executive director received a 31.9 per cent salary increase a year ago.
How can our patients and Ontarians trust that their hard-earned tax dollars are going to where it matters most? Where is the accountability?
This is why my coworkers and I — all 44 of us unionized with the Ontario Nurses’ Association — made the difficult decision to go on strike on October 20. Though we were uncomfortable at the thought and we had never done it before, we knew that we had to fight for ourselves and our community’s ongoing access to primary care. Making sure this work is sustainable for those of us providing care is how we can ensure timely, high-quality care remains available for our patients.
To retain and recruit the best primary care workers, we must create workplaces where people can afford to put food on the table and keep a roof over their head. Because without front-line staff providing the care our patients need and deserve, there is no primary care.
The board of directors must be held accountable for the financial mismanagement of the family health team and for misusing the public funds allocated for retention and recruitment. We call on them to use the funds as they were intended and provide fair wages for their health-care workers.
For those of you reading, hold governments and decision-makers accountable. Support the workers that care for you.
