A healthcare job fair was held in London Thursday evening. The event was organized by IBT College, a Toronto-based private career college.
The event had local healthcare companies and instructors from IBT College Healthcare Training programs.
IBT College said, the staffing shortage of home support workers has put Ontario’s healthcare system at capacity.
“It’s definitely a struggle,” said Ginelle Spence from Southbridge Care Homes, who was at the event hoping to recruit new staff.
“In pre-covid, we were already in a struggle. When covid hit, it wiped out a lot of our forces. A lot of folks got burnt out,” she said. “We’re lower in our nursing needs and then when the immunization mandates came in, we dropped even lower again.”
Richard Storey, the director of operations of Just Like Family Home Care, said with the rise in aging population and chronic diseases, long-term care units were put at capacity.
“There is definitely a shortage of qualified support workers, qualified people that just want to work in the industry,” he said. “To help this, we’re trying to work with companies which bring in people and workers.”
Talking about the cause of the labour shortage in the industry, Spence said Ontario has been shuffling people around from one role to another, instead of trying to create more staff in the position.
“The solution is just being innovative and creative,” she said. “We have been having to do a lot of people outreach in the international community and partnership with colleges to grow our own students for positions.”
Comments