From the “Calling” to Performance Monitoring: Unveiling Care Workers’ Realities to Understand the Crisis in Health and Social Services
Just prior to the pandemic, 697 homecare frontline workers across Quebec answered an online survey on this policy implementation and their work realities. Data from this survey reveal that health and social services were already exhausted long before the virus. Beyond their alleged “calling” to the care profession, the day-to-day reality of these professionals is mainly characterized by new public management performance and efficiency imperatives. This article highlights the effects of this managerial model and echoes the numerous criticisms of health and social services raised since March 2020. While the COVID-19 crisis underlined the limits of elderly care policies and the inequalities of treatment of care professions which are predominantly female, our survey helps to restore the voice of a few hundred of these professionals who are at the frontline of these issues.