Home Care nurses speak out
I am a full time RPN with a home care agency that has offices acorss Ontario.
It has become very difficult doing home care nursing with regards to basically the travel time and caring for the clients.
When I first started with this company 11 years ago there was no time per visit. Travel time was always 10 minutes between clients and it was only .30 a km then. In my 11 years, travel time has gotten down to a standard where they are only giving us an hour – it doesn’t matter where we go, we only have the hour for travel time. The km are now gone to .36, so .06 in 11 years.
And of course when the gas prices went crazy – they’re crazy now, but anyway it’s a bit better - it was very difficult because you always had to have money for the gas tank. That has put a real strain on finances.
Now in regards to the travel time and our agency cutting it back to an hour. What they are doing with the extra time? If you have 11 visits a day your travel time should be an hour and 30 to an hour and 40.
But because they are mandating that it is only an hour they are actually squeezing in more visits. The average day now at this agency is 11 to 12 visits per day which means really, your time per client, in front of the client is minimal and you spend most of your day travelling.
It’s really like piece work. That’s how we call it: piece work. Even though we get paid for 7 ½ hours; they don’t want us to do overtime or anything. I have many times said that anything over 11 visits is overtime. I don’t care what you say, what you do, I’m booking for the overtime and you can take me up on it.
Planning department says this is what Management wants, and Management says that’s what Planning wants. And that’s what happens. So, that’s the way it is these days. Very demanding job. You can’t keep nurses out here.