LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Do the right thing for home-care workers

Home-care aides in our area, eastern Manitoba, travel great distances. Some travel more than an hour to get to rural clients and this in all types of weather and road conditions which we all know can be atrocious.

The Interlake-Eastern Regional Health Authority (IERHA) pays 42 cents a kilometre. Federal employees get 59 cents a kilometre. This poor provincial subsidy does not carry out the costs of wear and tear and the wage is another deterrent for new aides. Rural Home-care aides should be paid more.

IERHA has no problem hiring agency hospital staff at likely triple the cost of their own employees but nickel and dime their own people. No wonder there is a hiring crisis. Yet IERHA and Shared Health still talk about aging in place, which has been shown to save millions of dollars, but make it almost impossible to actually do.

Automatic paid roadside assistance. Increased benefit packages. Competitive wages reflecting the rural work they do and a company vehicle might go a long way to increase hiring of new employees.

I thank all those healthcare workers for their care.

Now is the time to correct past deficiencies!