Unifor supports the rights of all people to access public mental health care free from barriers.

The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically changed workers’ lives, from added stress to isolation, grief, and for many, the loss of workplace drug plan coverage.

To mark Bell Let’s Talk Day, Unifor encourages all people in Canada to not only reach out and build connections, but to demand strengthened access to mental health services and prescription drug coverage through our public health care systems.

Those services must be freely accessible for people to get support, free from discrimination, when facing mental illness or crisis.

One out of every five Canadians will experience mental illness in normal times. It is okay to feel out of sorts because of the global COVID-19 crisis. During the pandemic, we must normalize, listen to, and empathize with those experiencing distress. Additionally, we remind those experiencing mental illness to find supports, as limited as they may be, that work for them in order to navigate through this crisis. Now more than ever, we must find community and support one another.

Members can access COVID-19 Mental Health resources online. These resources include four pillars:

• Mental health and wellness
• Quarantine and isolation
• Challenging stigma, prejudice and racism, and
• Taking action.

The job of promoting mental wellness is up to every single one of us. Through their union workers can support one another as peers, but for sustained medical care we all rely on the same public health care systems.

View statement on our website here.