The first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic was marked in Quebec by the heaviest toll in Canada in terms of both the number of people infected and deaths. According to the INSPQ, 92% of deaths were among people aged 70 and over. Long-term care facilities and other living and care environments dedicated to seniors were hit hard.

How did workers in these settings experience this episode? At the request of the Health and Welfare Commissioner, a CIRANO research team conducted a survey of 2,365 workers in the field. These people testified about their experience at work during the first wave of the pandemic. The focus was on their perceptions of the resources they had access to—and those they did not—and the demands and constraints they had to face. It also sought to better understand why many intended to leave their jobs.

By focusing on the perspective of the workers themselves, the study by Carl-Ardy Dubois, Dean and Full Professor at the School of Public Health of the Université de Montréal and CIRANO Researcher, carried out in collaboration with Roxane Borges da Silva and Alexandre Prud'homme, sheds light on the various situations of human resource fragility that may have affected the performance of the health system in its response to the pandemic.