The Au Chateau Staff that are Ready, Willing & Able
The Obvious Solution to Solve the Staffing Crisis.
Each day, Au Chateau aims to provide 3.4 paid hours of direct care per resident per day but the Ontario requirement is 4.
“We know of at least 10 employees either let go or who voluntarily left because of the COVID vaccine requirements”
Former Au Chateau employees.
In West Nipissing, the Au Chateau Long-Term Care Home is dominating the news recently. Over the last two weeks, a growing group of caregivers and their supporters have been demonstrating and successfully convinced the board to change their unique visitation rules that had forbidden them from entry for 13 months.
The other reason that this nursing home is a popular topic of discussion is because of the ongoing staffing crisis. This problem is affecting all healthcare settings in Ontario but appears to be hitting small Northern regions harder. During the January meeting of the Au Chateau Board of Management, the Director stated that the home is currently short 77 shifts per week. That means that the home has funding to have 11 extra staff every single day but cannot do so because of the lack of availability. In short, our seniors are missing out on a much needed 88 hours of care per day.
This fact was highlighted as well during the Director’s annual presentation to the municipal council the night before. During his January 17th address, Mr. Dupuis stated that the home is currently providing an average of 3.4 hours of care per resident. This is well below the provincial requirement of 4 hour per day.
As I have covered the recent demonstrations, I have come to know many of the supporters of Au Chateau caregivers. A contingent of these supporters are the forgotten healthcare heros. The ones who stepped up at the beginning of the pandemic, put themselves on the front lines and were praised by all of us. But then ridiculed, shamed and pushed out of their lifelong profession because they simply made a different choice than the majority.
Consider Jane who has been off work for over a year now because she chose to decline the COVID shot. Jane simply couldn’t take these shots for legitimate medical reasons. Or think of Rachel who did the so called “right thing” and got the first two shots. But after suffering a serious adverse reaction, she chose to decline the third shot. This led the Au Chateau management to promptly fire this double-vaccinated employee.
Jane and Rachel both know many other co-workers who have been affected by these rules. Together they identified 10 staff who worked at Au Chateau in 2021 but no longer do in 2023 because of the vaccine mandates. 10 people… Without divulging any personal information or names I confirmed these estimates with other long-time employees of Au Chateau. Some even estimate that the number may be higher. I remind myself that we must also consider the silent few who left without saying a word. In 2021-2022 (and to a certain extend today), there is a social cost to divulging the fact that one did not take the COVID shots.
The Au Chateau management have often downplayed these numbers as they conveniently only ever count those who were formally fired. So when these administrators (just like other hospital and LTC administrators across the province) say that only a small fraction of employees didn’t comply, they are purposely misleading the public.
Many staff voluntarily left the field when their bodily autonomy started being threatened. Like thousands of healthcare workers they preemptively left, knowing they had to keep working to support their families. Many of them wound up in retail or other personal services.
Au Chateau currently has approximately 200 employees. The potential 10 employees affected by these rules could represent a 5% change in the workforce. These people alone could close the entire staffing shortage gap.
The numbers and stories that these employees have shared with me are realistic and entirely supported by the data. A report from the Canadian Medical Association in August 2021 (well after the COVID vaccine had been available to the entire population), stated that:
Nonphysician health workers were about as likely as the general public to say they would get the jabs (80%).
They stated that in Quebec:
One-third of nurses said they were reluctant to accept vaccination, while one in 10 said they probably or definitely would avoid them.
If we accept the conservative estimate that 1 in 10 health cares workers held firmly onto their convictions and declined the COVID shots, it means that every health care setting has lost 10% of it’s workforce to these rules. Regardless of any health administrator’s claim that 98% of their staff compiled. Like I said earlier,. these percentages likely purposely excluded those who voluntarily found other employment.
The monumental difference that 10 people can make
Imagine if tomorrow Au Chateau decided to abolish their vaccine mandate for staff. Imagine that they reached out to all affected employees and welcomed them back. Imagine what 10 health care workers could do for these under-cared residents.
These 10 employees could easily contribute an extra 57 hours per day to the home (10 employees x 40 hours per week). This would result in a added 0.36 hours of care per resident and would greatly alleviate the staffing shortage. If there are 10 employees out there, then the shortage gap could entirely be eliminated. By simply asking qualified staff who pose no risk to the home to come back.
Employee moral would go up. There would be much less chance of staff burnout. The home would be in a much better position to handle the next outbreak (the last COVID outbreak led to 55 employees, or 25% of the workforce, all of whom were at least triple-vaccinated to be off sick). But most importantly, seniors would get the care they deserve at the end of their life… Seniors would get more than one bath per week. They might be dressed before 10AM.
Why Not Bring Them Back?
There does not appear to be any rationale for keeping these qualified healthcare workers from helping out. But still, like they were with visitation policies, many LTC homes and hospitals are stubbornly holding onto to false narratives. When Au Chateau agreed to remove their restrictions on caregivers last week they made it clear that this change was not going to apply to employees. In an an email to the public, the Acting Administrator stated:
This change in practice does not involve the staffs/students/volunteers and essential workers working and entering the Home. The vaccination requirement for these classifications remains unchanged.
The organization has made it clear that they have no intention of bringing back these trained workers who pose no threat to the home. Why?
Last week much needed attention was brought onto this subject when a group of 160 fired healthcare workers gathered in Port Perry, ON to openly state that they also were ready, willing and able to help.
As opposed to a year ago when most experts supported these rules, the tide has changed. CTV interviewed three experts on this subject last week and they all agreed that these rules "make no sense”.
“This isn’t about patient safety. Patient safety is compromised when we don’t have workers on the front lines dealing with heart attacks, dealing with illnesses. This makes no sense.”
Rafael Gomez, director of the Centre for Industrial Relations and Human Resources at the University of Toronto
“Without a well-evidenced public health rationale for denying employment to unvaccinated health-care workers – at a time of serious staff shortages – hospitals ought to welcome, or welcome back, every Ontario nurse who is qualified and available. To deny someone employment, without good scientific evidence showing that they pose an unacceptable risk to the life and health of patients and colleagues, is bad public health policy and appears to violate the human rights of the people involved.”
Arthur Schafer, founding director of the Centre for Professional and Applied Ethics at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg.
This past month, Ontario announced that it will start recruiting healthcare workers from other provinces. Last year, the Canadian government said they will recruit them from developing countries. These are not long-term solutions. Especially not for the province or country we are stealing these invaluable workers from.
There is no doubt that the healthcare field is in crisis. And this problem is being felt disproportionately more in West Nipissing. But we have a solution. We have health care heroes just waiting to save us.
What are we waiting for?
**Names throughout this article have been changed to protect individual privacy