It hasn't hit us personally except that my husband now has to work with covid patients. Well he works with the elderly in a care home and some of them have tested positive for covid and are sick. Out of 49 residents 12 are sick but no staff have tested positive yet. The patients are all triple vaccinated as are the staff.
What bothers me is the staff are now expected to look after sick patients. If these people were in the hospital they would be cared for by trained nurses who are given the best safety equipment. Not so much for staff in a care home. Not to mention that nurses are paid over double what a care aide or nurses aide are paid. And yet these workers are expect to do the same job as a nurse and put themselves and their family at risk of contracting this virus. These workers are taking care of our elderly parents and grandparents and they are not given the same training or equipment nurses and Dr's are.
I remember at the start of the pandemic nurses were given hotel rooms to stay in while they had to work with covid patients so they would not have to come into contact with their family to keep them safe in case they themselves became infected. There is no extra pay or perks for these people taking care of your elderly family members. In fact most of the time they are working short staffed because some people with health concerns don't go to work for fear of contracting covid and many of the shifts rely on casual on call personnel to keep staffing up. Not many casual workers want to go to work during a covid outbreak. So that means my husband and many others are now left to deal with sick elderly patients for the same wage as before. I don't even think they are given N95 masks just the usual paper medical ones to work in and a face shield. They are lucky if they get a full cover suit to wear in patients rooms and gloves.
I can only imagine how much worse it is for staff at the for profit care homes. I'm pretty sure it will only get harder to find staff now as wages have not kept up with the times and we don't value our elderly and thus do not think taking care of them is a priority nor does it deserve a decent wage.
I can only hope and pray that my husband does not contract covid because we have a very small house with one bathroom and no way to self isolate away from each other. We do not have enough income to rent a place or stay in a hotel for a week to stay away from a sick family member. If I get sick I may not do well and we both have elderly parents (in their 80's) who we will now not be able to see for fear of passing covid to them although they are all triple vaccinated. So the next time you want to talk about people being heroes think about the people working for minimum wage in stores and workers in care homes who now are left caring for our forgotten elderly. They are short staffed and afraid for themselves and their loved ones. They have no choice but to go to work and hope that they do not get sick. If they do get sick they only have 5 days of government paid sick time so they better get well quickly or they don't have any pay and that means not enough for bills or rent/mortgage.
We all want this pandemic to go away. We need to fight this virus and stop fighting each other and the government. If we all worked together we could beat this and be on to a better 2022. Lets fight covid together!
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