Category Archives: Hospitals

Staff at the Durham site of the South Bruce Grey Health Centre recently proved they could easily survive in the desert as hospital administrators removed all staff food and beverages from the premises without advance notice.

After a few days of giving a new meaning to the term “streamlining” staff, the hospital came to its senses and now provides coffee, tea, and hot chocolate for beleaguered workers.

Now hospital workers are appealing the community for help to ensure SBGHC fulfils its mandate to the community as both a health care provider and a responsible employer.

The Durham and Chesley sites at SBGHC are the first two of four hospital sites to undergo a transition from full hospital kitchen to a re-thermed food system. Staff previously employed in the kitchen and as housekeepers are now known as “multi-service” employees who perform both jobs.

“This restructuring was never a good idea, but the employer has botched the situation so completely it would be almost comical, if the lives of so many people were not being held at ransom,” said OPSEU President Warren (Smokey) Thomas. “Members of the community need to inform themselves what is happening at the four sites, and take action.”

Hospital employees, including many who work a 12-hour shift, were not provided with food or beverages; while adequate storage, cooling and heating facilities are not available on-site for food brought from home.

Things went from bad to worse last week as a senior VP in the hospital personally walked away with the cutlery from the former cafeteria, forcing one physician to eat with makeshift cutlery made from tongue depressors.

This week, staff have access to complimentary beverages following complaints made at staff meetings.

The restructuring plan is also resulting in costly renovations to the Chesley and Walkerton sites. Walkerton and Kincardine hospitals are to make the transition to re-thermed food by year-end. “The union still does not know how much this misconceived plan is going to cost the taxpayers, or how long the rollout will take,” said Thomas

The union is calling for more training of new multi-service staff.

Hospital staff are pleading for members of the community to make the management of the hospital’s four sites an issue in the municipal election in West Grey, Brockton, Kincardine, Arran-Elderslie, and other communities in South Bruce County. “We are asking people to make themselves aware and speak out as these issues affect every member of the community,” said Thomas.

OPSEU members at the South Bruce Grey Health Centre are fuming over a plan that will force some of the hospital’s lowest paid workers to travel far from their home communities to maintain part-time jobs.

Despite never having a problem filling a service shift, the hospital has decided to turn its former dietary and housekeeping staff into multi-service, multi-site workers.

That means a worker from Durham may have to travel an hour to Kincardine for as little as a four-hour shift. On their journey they may pass a colleague from Kincardine travelling in the opposite direction. Many had previously been in situations where they could walk to work.

Common sense would allow the workers to trade shifts to stay close to home. Brenda Rantz, SBGHC VP of Corporate Development and Labour Relations, has told the workers they cannot do so despite clear language in their OPSEU collective agreements that says otherwise.

To move these workers around the region will be costly. Gas, car maintenance and higher insurance premiums will all be borne by these workers – not the hospital.

Given the impetus towards a greener public sector, it is difficult to understand the rational behind a needless directive that will put more workers on the road.

Many are fearful of having to travel long distances over ice-covered roads in winter time. The region is known for treacherous conditions caused by blowing snow.

In addition, the union is in dispute with the hospital over the wage rates of the newly classified multi-purpose workers. Many are actually taking a pay cut to maintain jobs at the hospital. Coupled with the additional costs of having to needlessly drive around the region, this is an unfair burden on those least able to afford it.

The union intends to battle the hospital over these changes, including grieving the violation of the collective agreement. Evidently the hospital has failed to get the message earlier this summer – staff morale is failing at SBGHC and the quality of patient care may be compromised.

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Meanwhile, the plan to end fresh food service at SBGHC and replace it with frozen reheated food is stumbling along. All four sites of the hospital will have to undergo considerable renovation to accommodate what many staff consider to be a lot of disruption and expense for an inferior outcome. With costly renovations taking place and the need for specialized equipment to reheat and maintain the food, the community needs to start asking what the actual benefit may be. Staff has asked how patients will be fed when their kitchens are dismantled during renovations. They have yet to get an answer. It’s time for SBGHC to stop telling us everything is “a process,” and instead show the community that they have, in fact, a rational plan.

Recently the South Bruce Grey Health Centre (SBGHC) invited the public to a tasting of their new “rethermalized” food intended for inpatients at the four-site hospital. There has been much controversy in the community over the new food service — especially at a hospital located in the heart of one of Ontario’s major agricultural regions. SBGHC employs “multi-service workers” who serve the reheated food then spend the rest of their shift as cleaners. Ken Goldspink and Maryellen Pollard, Co-Chairs of the Friends of the Kincardine Hospital (FOTKH), wrote the following letter-to-the-editor:

There have been mixed reviews reported in the media regarding the quality and flavour of Retherm meals that were recently sampled at the Kincardine site of South Bruce Grey Health Centre. What was not reported was the food presented to the public on the taste-test evening was neither prepared, nor presented in the way patients will receive it.

The members of FOTKH who attended asked if the samplings were prepared using the Retherm carts. The multi-service worker admitted he had prepared them in the oven in the kitchen. When asked if patients would receive their plates as the guests did that evening, the worker admitted they would not. The patients will receive food in pre-packaged containers.

The food given for evaluation was prepared and served immediately. This is not the case for the patients. In another area hospital that is currently using this system, food is “rethermalated” and left sitting in the carts for long periods of time. The resulting food is much different from what was presented August 12th, 2010 for the public to evaluate.

Regardless of whether the food was good or bad that evening it was not a true comparator of what patients will be fed. The actual Retherm carts were not available to be seen. There was no information regarding nutrition of the meals. There were no representative samples of the food. There was no information on costs, or savings.

We applaud SBGHC for trying to engage the community more, however we would appreciate being involved prior to decisions being made, and we would like to have a true representation of what, we the public can expect. How can the public make an educated judgement without the true facts and products?

(Courtesy of the authors)

OPSEU supports the call for an investigator to conduct a public review into the Niagara Health System:

The Honourable Deborah Matthews
Minister of Health and Long Term Care
80 Grosvenor St.,
Toronto, Ontario
M7A 2C4

June 22, 2010

Dear Minister Matthews:

The Ontario Public Service Employees Union represents about 650 health care professionals at the Niagara Health System (NHS).

 We are writing to support the widespread call for a Ministry-appointed investigator to conduct a public review into the operations of the NHS. Given emerging evidence from Port Colborne and Fort Erie, where the closure of emergency rooms have led to a number of unintended consequences, we would also ask that a moratorium on ER closures be extended to all Ontario hospitals.

 The Niagara community has lost confidence in the hospital administration and in an unworkable “hospital improvement plan.”

This March the Ontario Health Coalition facilitated a high-profile panel to travel the province and listen to concerns about the public health system by community members. These community members included municipal leaders, health care professionals, clergy, agricultural organizations, seniors, patients and their families. Nowhere in Ontario was the evidence as compelling as Niagara.

Many of the witnesses presented personal evidence alleging they or their family-members failed to receive appropriate care, including preventable death. In addition to the Coroner’s Inquest into the death of Niagara teen Reilly Anzovino, the NHS admits there is an additional investigation into the death of a patient from septic shock resulting from an infected leg wound.

 In addition, we are awaiting the release of the ombudsman’s report into the decision-making process surrounding approval of the plan by the Local Health Integration Network.

 While the hospital continues to cut beds, the halls are filling up with patients on stretchers. Not only are these patients in an inappropriate environment, but families are reporting that they are not receiving basic hospital amenities, such as meal service.

 Other serious concerns have been raised around the decline of mental health services, wait times, continuity of care, lack of functioning EMS protocols, and the absence of enabling conditions prior to cuts to service.

 Even with additional funding, Niagara remains deeply in debt and in the eyes of the community, severely dysfunctional.

We would urge you to act now.

We look forward to your earliest possible reply.

Sincerely,

(Signed)
Warren (Smokey) Thomas
President, Ontario Public Service Employees Union

The Peterborough Health Coalition is presently organizing a lawn sign campaign to pressure MPP Jeff Leal to do more to prevent cuts to the local hospital. The proposal going to the Central East Local Health Integration Networks includes cuts to the equilvanet of 183 full-time jobs from the hospital.

You can make a difference. A lawn sign crew will bring the sign to your door and put it up for you.

 If you live in or around Peterborough, join the campaign. You can arrange a lawn sign by leaving a message at 705-742-9286 or by e-mailing the Ontario Health Coalition at ohc@sympatico.ca.

Human resources is fraught with minutia. Given the complexity of administering a public hospital, it is understandable when occasional errors occur in human resources. However, when a hospital makes an error, it is usually not a good idea to compound it, as was recently done at the South Bruce Grey Health Centre. Recently a part-time staff member had two-weeks of scheduled work cancelled due to a lack of inpatients at her small community hospital, one of four locations that make up SBGHC. Two-weeks triggers eligibility for Employment Insurance, which she applied for. When the hospital provided her employment record, she noticed that it indicated a wage rate far below what she actually earned. Without the correct amount, she had to return with a pay stub to verify her correct earnings. When EI further checked with the hospital’s human resources department as per the staff member’s eligibility, the hospital was adamant that this position never had days cancelled. The claim was not only denied, but the staff member said she felt she was being accused of fraud. She had to persuade EI to call her direct supervisor at the hospital site to confirm that she did, in fact, regularly get cancelled days when the inpatients were too few. Local union executive members say this is the kind of treatment they regularly get at the hospital. No apology was forthcoming from the hospital. OPSEU, in conjunction with the Grey Bruce Labour Council, the Ontario Health Coalition, and the Friends of the Kincardine Hospital, are presently campaigning to draw the public’s attention to the shortcomings of the hospital, including failed labour relations and poor staff morale.

About 60 members of the Peterborough community marched on MPP Jeff Leal’s constituency office June 17 to try and stem deep cuts to the local hospital. Lawn signs are beginning to show up in the city urging the Liberal MPP to rescue the local hospital from its financial dilemma. The Peterborough Regional Health Centre is facing a $26 million deficit. After the community rejected a plan by a peer review to cut more than 70 beds and axe more than 170 full-time equivalent jobs, the hospital has been struggling to come up with a new plan that doesn’t also significantly cut services, beds and staff.

Leal met with representatives of the Peterborough Health Coalition for about 20 minutes, but made no commitments.

Video of the march below: