By rdnewsNOW staff

More Support Needed, NDP says

NDP calling on province to provide sustained sick pay for healthcare workers

Nov 18, 2020 | 11:10 AM

Alberta’s Official Opposition is calling on the province to introduce sustained sick pay for health care workers.

The call come after the NDP recently learned that some health care workers who are sick or isolating are being forced to take leave without pay.

The NDP acknowledges that the federal government’s Canada Recovery Sickness Benefit does provide eligible recipients with $450 per week after taxes, but it can only cover two weeks of leave from work.

“We can’t ask people to choose between paying their bills and obeying public health orders,” said NDP Leader Rachel Notley. “The federal paid sick leave only lasts for 10 days and it does not apply to people working in hospitals who come into close contact with a patient positive for COVID-19.”

Notley says, “The very least we can do is make sure front line health care workers can pay their rent and put food on the table.”

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NDP officials say that on November 6, Premier Jason Kenney said “it is concerning to see over 10 per cent of cases traceable to people who have had COVID symptoms and have gone out into the public, gone to work, and gone to socialize.”

The NDP further claims that Alberta is only one of three Canadian provinces not currently providing some form of isolation wage support for physicians, despite the Premier claiming in March, as the first wave of COVID-19 put pressure on hospitals, that he would bring in such a program.

On July 6, Alberta Health Services revoked special paid leave, which provided Alberta nurses with paid leave on top of their collective bargaining agreement. Since then, according to the NDP, many nurses have relied on their sick days and other bank days to cover their required isolations.

“The provincial government needs to reinstate the special paid leave,” adds NDP Labour Critic Christina Gray. “We cannot force our nurses and other frontline healthcare workers to sacrifice their banked days off to maintain their income while in isolation.”

Mike Parker, President of the Health Sciences Association of Alberta, says the health-care professionals he represents are being penalized for staying home when they’ve been exposed to COVID-19.

“We’re being told that when our members are being forced to stay home when they’ve been in close contact that they have to drain their sick banks, even when they’re not sick,” he points out. “These health-care professionals are putting themselves at the very front of the fight against COVID-19 and we have an employer and government that is counting dollars and cents, rather than focusing on the health of Albertans.

(With file from media release)