CUPE is asking the province to change it’s view on COVID-19 and treat it like an airborne virus.

That from Ontario Council of Hospital Unions President Michael Hurley as the results of a survey involving 1,126 local residents were released.

“Thousands of seniors have died because of our stubborn resistance to treat this as an airborne virus,” he says.

A third of those surveyed locally said they didn’t think the province planned properly to deal with the pandemic.

Hurley also says over 57 percent believe the government should move long-term care residents ill with COVID-19 symptoms to hospital, to protect other residents.

“We’ve been asking them not to treat long-term care residents with COVID in long-term care facilities, but to do what Taiwan, South Korea and Hong Kong have done, which is move them into hospital where they can receive a higher level of care,” Hurley says. “The government has refused to do either of these things and for that they are culpable.”

In terms of other survey results, nearly 84 percent of respondents in North Bay support widespread COVID-19 testing, with over 85 percent saying all hospital patients and staff should be tested too.

When asked whether they thought the province needed to toughen its standards for protecting health care staff, 82.5 per cent in North Bay said yes.

A CUPE release says across Ontario, more than 1538 long-term care residents have died from COVID-19 and hundreds of front-line staff are infected with the virus

The union says as of May 26, 4485 health care workers were infected with COVID-19.

Twelve of them have died.

 

(Photo courtesy Zoom conference call with OCHU President Michael Hurley)

Filed under: north-bay-area, ontario-council-of-hospital-unions