Source: Radio New Zealand
Helen says most support workers earn the minimum wage. RNZ / Charlotte Cook
Support workers suggest the government spend a day with them to understand why an increase to 82 cents per kilometre is a joke.
The government has announced a temporary 30 percent increase in mileage reimbursement rates for home and community support workers to offset soaring fuel costs.
This is still under the recommended reimbursement rates set by Inland Revenue before fuel prices climbed towards $4 a litre.
“Here’s a tiny little bit of ‘let’s keep everybody quiet’… It’s almost like a joke.”
Helen has been a support worker for 18 years.
Each year she thinks it will be her last, but every year she says no, wanting to wait until after a client has died. Each year she finds another person to wait for.
Across nearly two decades Helen has arrived to find her clients have hurt themselves, died overnight, she’s helped families dress their dead. She knows everything about them. Their kids’ names, what they do, how they like their coffee. As a support worker, she becomes part of the family.
She knows the job and the roads in Waikanae like the back of her hand.
On this particular Thursday she had six appointments, although it was likely to be more; they get added into her day.
RNZ / Charlotte Cook
‘It shouldn’t have taken a fuel crisis to get an increase’
She starts the morning shift at 7.15am with 140km left in the tank.
The last time she filled the car it cost $163.
“It shouldn’t have taken a fuel crisis to get an increase,” she said.
She needs her own car each day to travel between clients, but this increase doesn’t cover the car itself, or any maintenance.
The increase is also only available for a year, or until petrol prices are below $3 per litre for four consecutive weeks.
After that it’s back to 63.5c per kilometre.
“A lot of us are on the living wage…the new people that are coming on, that are still going through their qualifications, I mean, they’re on minimum wage, plus they’re having to prop up their own petrol and obviously car maintenance and things.”
For support workers it’s not just the petrol payments that upset them. They also lost their pay equity claim, and feel undervalued by the government.
Helen works incredibly hard, her clients know that too. One of them tries to give her morning tea to take away, knowing that between appointments, she will barely have enough time to cover the travel, let alone breaks.
Waikanae town and the beach are just over 7km away from each other, her clients are spread between the two.
” I just say I’m staying in Waikanae and that’s the end of it… the further you go, the more it’s going to cost you.”
However Helen said many staff go back and forth up and down the coast, sometimes travelling from Palmerston North and the Hutt Valley.
Helen is only working with clients in Waikanae to try and cut down the distance she travels. RNZ / Charlotte Cook
A morning shower, first thing in the afternoon…
But she still does her fair share of bouncing around. Her first and third appointments were two streets over from each other, but instead she had a 14km trip to see the client in between.
Her company does the roster to meet what the client needs but when only some of the petrol is covered doubling back is a hard pill to swallow.
It’s also a problem trying to meet people’s needs; most want their shower early, but staffing shortages mean a morning shower comes at 1pm.
Everything is timed to the minute.
“This morning we had 10 minutes for dressing, 20 minutes for hygiene, which is a shower, 15 minutes for meal preparation, and five minutes for medication.”
She sets a timer to see if it’s possible to achieve it all in 45 minutes.
That’s her least favourite bit, often the time to do the tasks takes longer than allocated, meaning she either must leave unfinished, or the rest of her clients wait.
Her alarm went off right on time, she only makes it out because her client had already made himself breakfast.
Leaping in the car, she’s off to the next one.
The problem is despite the fact she’s so far on time, it’s after 9am. She has two 30-minute appointments at different houses and then needs to be 7km away at 10am.
But that math doesn’t add up. More than an hour’s worth of work, but less than 60 minutes to fit it into.
‘We’re going to be late’
“We’re going to be late” – 30 minutes late to be precise.
But she doesn’t dwell, delicately weaving her way through the streets to her next location, a client with terminal cancer.
“The lady that we’re going to now has been waiting for, it’s called a multi-chair that you can interlink with a system that goes over the bath and into the shower.
“She hasn’t had a proper shower in a year.
“We’ve all just been kind of hoping that she’ll get her chair before she goes so she can at least experience one chair before she leaves.”
By visit five, Helen’s clocked up 30km and an hour behind the wheel between bookings.
She hadn’t stopped for food, water or even a loo break, just sprinting between clients.
Helen had to do that once, not sprinting but walking. Her car broke down, she had no other options and no help from her company, so she packed a backpack and requested clients close together, because she’d be hitting the pavement.
“I feel very privileged doing my job and I’m sure everybody else that works in the same job feels very privileged as well.
“It’s a real feel-good job.
“People really appreciate us coming and that’s lovely but we can’t come if we can’t afford to come….
“Unfortunately, our cars don’t run on feel-good feelings.”
Support workers do the work no one else will
Her day ends at about 12.45pm with 45 kilometres clocked up.
She’s right, those good feelings won’t fuel the car. For today’s rebate she will receive around $37.
That’s $15 short of what IRD suggests for petrol repayments. That doesn’t cover car maintenance or costs to keep it on the road.
Helen said she wouldn’t be doing it if she didn’t love it and feel appreciated by the clients, but the reality is, it costs her money.
“I challenge anyone to come out and spend the day with me… see what we do for a day and actually how much we do and see how much of a difference we make in the community but also how hard we work to make that difference.”
Her last but enduring question she asked herself, “who would do this if we didn’t?”
Who looks after the elderly, the sick, people post-surgery? Where do they go, the overfilled hospitals, retirement homes they can’t afford?
“We are fighting for the time for them, but we’ve also got to fight for ourselves… it’s a fight all round.”
– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
