We give government credit for acknowledging that home care is a critical part of health care.

They took the crucial step of improving and standardizing wages for Continuing Care Assistants (CCAs) in Nova Scotia, and acknowledged this was just the first step along the road to improving the overall health care system.

Now, we need them to standardize working conditions.

Twenty-five per cent of home care workers we represent do not have standardized work schedules. This means they can be required to be available to work for 14 hours, but may only get paid for seven hours of work.

These unpredictable schedules mean these workers aren’t able to have any work-life balance. Parents aren’t able to arrange child-care, or attend family events.

It’s a big part of the reason agencies — often in rural parts of the province — are having such a hard time finding CCAs to deliver home care in their area.

Government already took the first big step towards addressing our crisis in home care. Now, let’s take the next one.

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