“This pandemic has been traumatic for many health care workers, especially when so many of us are women. I work as a housekeeper at a hospital.
We’ve been facing pressures on the job, but also pressures at home with our families being anxious about us working in health care facilities. Many of us had to sleep in the basement to stay separated from our families for a while. I know some co-workers who couldn’t take the pressure and had to leave health care.
People feel more confident now, and we feel better informed about how to protect ourselves at the workplace. Being part of a union has been important for this because it gives us a really strong footing, especially when it comes to dealing with safety issues, and the information overload that we had at the beginning of the pandemic.
I have a lot of hopes. I look forward to the day when this pandemic is out of sight. In the meantime, my hope is that the community can help support us by being careful and protecting themselves.
Also, as a privatized housekeeper in a P3 facility, I’m also hopeful that our workers will be brought back into the public sector.
We were initially excited about the news that housekeepers and food service workers were returning in-house. And then, we found out that workers in P3s weren’t included. It was quite a shock because we’ve been doing so much and working so hard.
But I know that we’ll keep fighting to return to the public sector, as our colleagues in other health care facilities.”
Judy Gicho, Housekeeper, part of the health care team