Frontline staff in Sask. feel hopeless due to lack of government funding

Warning: This story contains the mention of suicide.

Workers at some Saskatchewan community-based organizations (CBOs) say they haven’t received a raise in more than a decade.

A group of CBO employees were at the Legislative Building this week to demand multi-year funding to increase their wages and retain staff so they can provide important care to the communities’ most vulnerable.

Clovel Van Opestal, an addiction attendant at Pine Lodge Addiction Recovery Centre, said because of the poor wages and staff retention, clients pay the price.

“This is why I get so emotional — because I’m angry. What’s going on with this?” she asked.

Van Opestal has been working at the centre for 13 years. It was based in Indian Head, but is now located in Regina.

Clovel Van Opestal said although she isn’t a nurse or psychiatrist, CBOs provide similar services at recovery centres. (Nicole Garn/980 CJME)

She is making under $20 an hour.

She said she does the same work as addiction attendants who work for the Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA), but she gets paid significantly less working for a CBO.

“We’re not nurses. I’m not a counsellor, but I do counsel to the clients who want to talk during the night because I work shift work. Sometimes (clients) couldn’t sleep because they are thinking of killing themselves,” Van Opestal said.

When the centre was located in Indian Head, it would send clients with suicidal thoughts to hospitals in Regina.

Van Opestal said clients struggle with a variety of things at the same time, like addiction and mental health disorders.

Employees do what they can to help the clients, but when it comes to suicidal thoughts, that is out of their hands.

“We do help them. We gave our heart to the clients that we have at Pine Lodge,” she said.

Van Opestal recalled a traumatic experience that happened during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A client of hers was sent to the Regina General Hospital because he had suicidal thoughts. Less than an hour after he was admitted, the centre received a call to pick him up and take him home. Hospital staff said there was no problem with the client.

A few days later, he took his life.

Van Opestal got emotional talking about her former client.

“It hurts,” she exclaimed. “He’s not my family. I didn’t know the guy other than at work. It’s happening a lot. I get so frustrated.”

She wants to provide the best help she can, but with limited resources and poor wages, it’s extremely difficult.

“I would love to help everyone. Even my husband says to me, ‘Honey, don’t let it get to you.’ But it does sometimes — quite often,” she said.

Van Opestal was part of a group of CBO employees brought to the Legislative Building by NDP MLA Meara Conway.

“This is a sector that has faced chronic underfunding for years now,” said Conway. “We’re seeing high, high turnover, we’re seeing low wages and of course the communities and clients that they serve are the ones that end up paying the price for this.”

She was glad to hear that Social Services Minister Gene Makowsky met with the group, but wasn’t overly optimistic. Conway said the need for a multi-year funding plan is crucial.

Makowsky said he welcomed the opportunity to talk with the CBO workers.

“I appreciate all the work that our CBOs do in our province each and every day. And I appreciate the concerns they bring forward on retention and wages,” he said.

Makowsky said in recent years there has been an increase in support directly to CBO organizations who pay the wages to those workers. One of the CBO employees noted that of the 86 CBOs across the province, only two have a multi-year funding agreement with the government.

This isn’t the first time CBOs have asked for multi-year funding; they were at the Legislative Building in 2019 for the same reason.

Jackie Watson works at a detox centre in Moose Jaw. She said wages are so poor that most staff have two or three jobs. (Nicole Garn/980 CJME)

Jackie Watson works at the Wakamow Manor Social Detox in Moose Jaw, a 22-bed residential service that provides safe detoxification to people 16 years of age and older.

“Multi-year funding is important to us because it is impossible to plan ahead without knowing what our next provincial budget will look like,” said Watson.

She said right now funding from the government is inconsistent and inadequate.

“Extra funding means we can hire more staff. Right now, our staff-to-client ratio, we are 22 beds and we only have two staff on each shift. It can pose a real challenge for us to really provide all the multi-faceted services that some of these people really need and that they come to us for,” she explained.

She said it takes a lot of hands to do the work that CBOs do, but without the funding, their hands are tied.