The CEO of the B.C. Care Providers thinks the practice of care home workers needing to work at multiple sites will be looked at once the COVID-19 pandemic subsides.

Daniel Fontaine made those comments on NL Newsday as governments restrict workers to just one location to try and limit the spread of the novel coronavirus.

“We advocated immediately to make sure that workers did not go from site to site because we identified that early on as being something that could spread the virus because we know that it can also happen in flu outbreaks as well,” he said.

“It is a reason why I have advocated for a health-human resources strategy. We need more workers, not fewer.”

While there are several reasons for the practice, Fontaine thinks wages are a key reason as to why care workers choose to work at multiple care home across British Columbia.

“It’s one of the reasons why the province has made an investment of $10-million per month, which is going to now go to those care aides and they’ll now be able to have their wages levelled up, so they are on par with government workers,” he said.

“But even government employed workers are full pay are working at multiple sites.”

Fontaine says its also not good for employees and seniors if people regularly work more than a full time position equivalent, which he says is also happening in some instances.

“It is just simply not healthy for the workers. It’s not good for the seniors,” he added.

“I hope that when the dust settles on all of this, governments will listen to some of those recommendations and we will finally have a health human resources strategy that is going to attract the workforce that we need as our population ages over the next decade.”

Fontaine previously told NL News that he will be lobbying for a task force to look at the well-being of seniors in long care homes in light of COVID-19.