Labour Views
with Sonja Boucher
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Unpaid care giving has become more common since the onset of the cuts to our health care system. Yet, this critical care provided by mostly women across Canada to their family and friends is invisible.
Unpaid care giving also lacks the financial and program support to prevent unpaid caregivers suffering from exhaustion, burnout, and the depletion of their own health and financial security.
On average, 23 per cent of Canadians and (45-64 years) provide some type of unpaid care to their elderly or disabled family members or friends. On average, 29 hours of unpaid care per month is given by women as compared to 16 hours per month by men.
Unpaid caregivers perform many medical and nursing tasks such as using urinary catheters, tube feedings, and providing palliative care to the dying (lifting, bathing, changing, and giving medication).
They care for family members and friends who require care due to illness, disability, and health limitation.
As a result of hospitals downsizing, restructuring, and nursing cutbacks, unpaid caregivers increasingly provide health care support at home.
Changes in the health care system have resulted in a shift in responsibility for care onto families and communities - particularly women.
Is this ahead for us in the NWT? Will the recent announcement by the premier to cut $135 million from our territorial budget mean more unpaid work for women in the North? Will the upcoming cuts to our public services crush us into exhaustion?
The government's decision to shift this responsibility predominantly onto Canadian women has caused a silent crisis. This source of negative stress has affected the health and well being, as well as the economic security, of women who are trying to balance paid and unpaid work and mothering.
Is this devalued and unpaid women's work or labour of love - which has become so prevalent in southern Canada - what we want in the NWT ?
The absence of appropriate policy to address unpaid caregivers in the provinces and territories requires an immediate response in order to alleviate the crushing financial, health, and social support challenges faced by unpaid caregivers.
It is time that we, the residents of the NWT, speak out in support of maintaining the quality of our public services such as health care, education, justice, transportation, public works and the many others we use in our daily lives.
These services provide us our social safety net. As Northerners, we have a right to quality public services that support our sick, our children, our elderly, our disabled, our dying family members, and the unpaid caregivers.
- Sonja Boucher is a member of the PSAC Regional Women's Committee