An open letter to MPP Sylvia Jones:

I am a home care worker, delivering home health and home support services in the town of Orangeville. I am writing to you because our current working situation is at a breaking point. Something must be done. No more bandages.

Ontario home care workers work hard and deliver quality service. With low wages, no pension and no benefits, our employment conditions are well below the standards set for colleagues working in facilities and hospitals. Why are we so different?

Providing home care requires that I must travel between clients. Many home care workers, like me, spend as much time getting from one client to the next as they do delivering care to their clients. When travel time is unpaid it's not uncommon for a home care worker to be on the job 8 hours a day but only get paid for 4 hours. Is this fair?

Finally, the mileage rate paid by most agencies is meager. Many employers on compensate at rates of $.32 per kilometer! WSIB pays $.37 per kilometer to attend appointments and the government pays over $.40 per kilometer. What makes us so different from the others?

I know the home care system can be improved. Compensation for all of our work, including travel time, is very important. Fair wages, mileage compensation and work protections from home care workers - like all other workers - is the place to start.

I love the work I do and know that I am a professional delivering the kind of care that is essential to the health of our clients I meet each day. I hope that my work is also respected by the agencies and Ministry that I work for. Change must occur.

If home care workers were to stop working on the same day where would the health care system be? The health care system would crumble in mere days and where would all the clients trying to stay in there own homes be at? This is only a bandage to cover up what really is happening?
Mary Huckle
Orangeville - PSW