Amelia Hussain is as a personal support worker at The Village of Taunton Mills, a retirement community in Whitby, east of Toronto.
She provides care and comfort to patients with dementia and Alzheimer’s by helping to feed them, change them and entertain them.
Hussain has worked at this retirement community throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, a time that has highlighted the importance of health-care workers. However, advocates for Ontario PSWs, as well as the province’s nurses, say the people in frontline positions during the public health crisis remain undervalued for their vital work.
“I think they (governments] could have done better,” said Hussain. “Since the pandemic is still going on, they should still be providing some sort of pandemic pay.”
The provincial government has come out with various incentives to try and attract people to become PSW’s but there are still many challenges still facing those in the field.
