The push to fill Canada’s critical PSW shortage

New programs offering faster—and tuition-free—training are cropping up around the country. But are they enough?

In Canada, PSWs—also known as health-care aides (HCAs), or orderlies in Quebec—work in settings ranging from private homes to hospitals and long-term care facilities. Broadly speaking, they assist disabled, ill or elderly individuals with daily living (bathing, eating and so on), light housekeeping and sometimes with medical procedures delegated by, or under the supervision of, a doctor or nurse.

They’re also in critically short supply. During the pandemic, that problem was made glaringly obvious when long-term care facilities—where a large portion of the country’s PSWs work—regularly made headlines as they struggled to maintain enough personnel to look after their residents. The staffing shortage got so bad during the summer of 2020 that the federal government deployed the military to care homes in Ontario and Quebec, where it was reported that some seniors died from dehydration and neglect.

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