Home care & disability workers need paid leave & protective gear to stop the spread of COVID-19!

Home care and disability workers are at the frontline of stopping the spread of coronavirus among the people in our communities who are most at risk from COVID-19 - the elderly, people with disabilities and people living with chronic illness and compromised immune systems.

Every day they work in peoples homes and out in the community, providing essential care.

But the current state of our home care & disability support system presents a huge challenge for containing the spread of coronavirus.

Many care and support workers do not have access to paid sick leave, and are finding it difficult to get enough basic personal protective equipment - like masks - from their employers.

This is a huge threat to workers and the people in their care. Without paid leave, many workers face impossible choices between self-isolating and making ends meet.

All care and support workers need to be supported and paid to take leave when necessary, to protect themselves and the people in their care.

Protecting the most at risk from the spread of coronavirus should be our Government’s primary focus.

We can not risk going to way of Italy, where doctors and nurses are being forced to make traumatic decisions about who to respirate.

Our government needs to enable social distancing NOW, and properly protect the workers on the front lines. This means supporting workers to take time off work to curb transmission, and providing protective equipment.