Missing work time, worrying about your job, losing income and opportunities for advancement, this is the lot of many caregivers, essential “workers” who provide 5.7 billion unpaid hours every year in the country.
A report from the Canadian Center of Excellence for Caregivers, released at the end of 2022, highlights the value of the work done by caregivers, which is equivalent to three times Canadian spending on home care, community care and care long term. The report also notes the exhaustion of caregivers and pleads for support measures for those who hold a “makeshift system” at arm’s length.
Like her sister, Marie-Diane Perron has been a caregiver for 12 years for their 77-year-old mother in a wheelchair and suffering from macular degeneration. The morning of our interview, Marie-Diane had to put aside her professional duties because she had just lost the caregiver who prepared meals and took care of her mother’s household chores.
“My daughter is looking for a job and would be ready to do that, but I don’t think we will have any more financial assistance because she is family. Should she do this voluntarily since she’s her grandmother? asks the lady, worried.
In general, Marie-Diane devotes three hours a week of her working time to accompanying her mother to medical appointments. As her health deteriorates, she has to dip into sick leave and vacations to meet her needs.
“We have excellent employers, my sister and I, who allow us to devote time to our mother. I dare not imagine the life of people who do not have this flexibility and our monetary capacity, ”she says, while admitting to feeling very tired, because the help is not limited to appointments. to the hospital.
Dreaming of support
The mental burden accumulated over the years for this mother who also lost a son has become so great that Marie-Diane has given up the role of manager, which she nevertheless loved very much. She now holds advisory roles.
Marie-Diane would like to feel supported by society in this role which weighs heavily, even when we love.
At Info-Aidant, a listening and information line for caregivers, the number of calls has increased every year for the past 10 years.
“The most glaring need is direct financial support because this helping role condemns to a certain impoverishment. People pay out of pocket for equipment, services, etc. explains the director, Julie Bickerstaff.
In Quebec, a tax credit is available to caregivers, but no direct allowance.
When the caregiver’s health takes a hit
Photo Valerie Lesage
Nine months after the death of her mother, Josée, who wishes to remain anonymous, is still struggling to recover from the total exhaustion to which her work as a caregiver has led her.
Nine months after the death of her mother, Josée is struggling to regain her health and gradually resumes her work in sales.
For several years, she accompanied her mother in fragile health. In early 2022, when advanced cancer was diagnosed, she first took a vacation to help out. And when his mother entered a palliative care home, no one imagined that it would last a month and a half.
“It was not clear that I had short-term insurance with my employer and I wondered what was going to happen with my future. Was I going to lose my job? I was anxious, but convinced that my place was with my mother,” says Josée with emotion.
Eventually, she was entitled to income that represented a quarter of her salary, paid months later. A shortfall whose impacts are added to all the expenses paid for meals on wheels and other needs before the terminal phase.
Exhausted after the death of her mother, Josée, who had seen to everything for her own good, said she fell to her knees. She was unable to return to work until the fall. She had experienced several bereavements of loved ones in the two previous years, the backlash effect was strong.
Now it’s a step-parent who asks her for time. Victim of a stroke during the holidays, his abilities are greatly reduced.
“Even if his house was not yet suitable, we wanted to take him out of the hospital,” says Josée, tired of having to fight for services to be provided.
people are drowning
“Our society does not see that people are drowning. There aren’t a lot of buoys launched and you have to do a lot of legwork to find services,” she says.
She would like employers to show understanding and have a plan, with good group insurance, to support caregivers in an aging society.