Caregiving in the Community

By Jannette Lumley, International Student Recruitment, City College

February 11th, 2021

Evidently, more and more healthcare professionals who are providing care to individuals in need are becoming susceptible victims of circumstances within the healthcare industry. Professionals in the healthcare industry face many challenges such as: inequality, discrimination and physical or verbal abuse.

Professionals like Personal Support Worker (PSW) enjoy providing care to their patients or clients. However, they are encountering different challenges working in the community or in an institution that offers health care services.

A Caregiver feels dissatisfied, disgruntled or unappreciated in their profession because they are not being supported by management and staff at their place of employment as well as the individuals they are caring for.

Day in and day out PSW are assigned to a specific floor or room to work on their own without any assistance at their place of employment. They are placed in vulnerable situations to be verbally abused by the resident, being spat on, called names and often asked by the resident why is it only “fat” people working at that facility at times racializing them.

Some of the PSWs that I have collaborated with state that they get limited support from their management team, often feeling under-appreciated, underpaid, understaffed and needing to meet unrealistic expectations set with regards to time allotted for care. As per many PSWs there is descrimination in the workplace, where there are exceptions made to the policies and procedures for the management staff as compared to the frontline worker, who in many cases are people of color.

Also, healthcare professionals are experiencing inequalities on a regular basis as it relates to the delivery of care within certain demographics in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). Obviously,

certain groups of people are treated better than some caused by economic inequality where income inequality is unevenly distributed working in the healthcare field.

The salary of a Personal Support Worker is unjustified based on the workload they face on a daily basis. Social inequality is another factor individuals face in a community like accessibility to mental health programs. Seemingly it seems as if certain areas are denied access to viable

programs.

In terms of a new graduate graduating from a nursing program may face the following challenges at a place of employment such as:

• A new graduate nurse may experience role transition from a student nurse to a staff nurse
• Adjusting to new circumstances and responses as it relates to change over personal development interaction
• Caring for an increasingly complex patient with more than one disease
• Overwhelmingly dealing with patients assessment
• Medication administration
• Documenting very detailed and accurate patient information