THE BC NDP on Tuesday released a new ad featuring a long-term care aide named Josephine, who explains how a decade and a half of BC Liberal cuts left seniors in care homes vulnerable when COVID-19 hit.

In the ad, Josephine talks about how she was forced to re-apply for her own job at lower wages, how BC Liberal cuts contributed to COVID-19 outbreaks, and what the BC NDP government has done to fix long-term seniors care. 

The ad can be viewed here.

Background:

• BC Liberal Bills 29 and 94 devastated long-term care and led to the layoffs of 10,000 workers, most of whom were women. This led to wage cuts and forced many workers to work at multiple facilities.
• When the pandemic hit, this led to the spread of COVID-19 between facilities. BC’s single-site order stopped that practice. 
• When the BC Liberals left office, the Seniors Advocate reported that 90% of care homes failed to meet the government’s own staffing standards.

The BC NDP says it is fixing the problems the BC Liberals left behind:

• Hiring 7,000 new health care workers in long term and assisted living, and is on track to meet or exceed staffing standards in every region of the province by 2021.
• Eliminating multi-bed rooms in health authority-owned long-term care facilities, giving seniors more dignity.
• Building new, better public long-term care homes with new beds, instead of handing hundreds of millions of dollars to for-profit corporations.
• Making sure private operators deliver better care with new requirements to ensure they deliver the care they are paid to and are more accountable for the public dollars they receive.
• Paying care workers fairly with “levelled up” wages and benefits, even after the pandemic ends.