CBS warns of coming job losses in national meeting with labour

Posted on November 5, 2012 | 1 comment

Canadian Blood Services executives Andrew Pateman and Ian Mumford.

Canadian Blood Services says the organization of the future is going to require fewer people. Caught in a funding squeeze by their provincial funders, CBS says they have to compete with other health priorities and money is getting tighter and tighter.

“The focus is not on cost cutting, but on process improvement,” says Andrew Pateman, Vice-President of Talent Management and Corporate Strategy for CBS. Speaking in Toronto November 2nd at a national meeting of unions representing more than 4,000 CBS workers, Pateman spoke about using new technology and reducing steps to improve process efficiency.

Pateman said meeting with the provinces was like getting in a mixed martial arts ring. “We’re getting beat up,” he said.

In his 18 months with the organization Pateman says he has conducted two employee surveys, the results of the second being calculated now. He said he wasn’t surprised that staff felt that “management was not leading in the way they should.”

Both Pateman and Chief Operating Officer (COO) Ian Mumford acknowledged they had work to do in better communicating with staff, including involving front line workers in the decision-making process. Mumford had specifically asked to address the meeting organized by labour.

The CBS COO said they expect managers to carry on a variety of roles from donor and client relations to good financial management. On top of that they are expected to be skilled negotiators and be able to manage labour relations between contracts.

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Ontario Shores’ activists win awards

Posted on October 31, 2012 | 7 comments

The Workers Health and Safety Centre, the Durham Labour Council and the Ontario Federation of Labour has honoured OPSEU’s campaign for workplace safety at Ontario Shores Centre for Mental Health Sciences with two awards.

Local 331 President Yvonne Lewis has won her regional health and safety award for her tireless advocacy on behalf of staff at the Centre.

Norma Gunn has won the OFL’s disability rights award after sharing the story of her struggle with post-traumatic stress disorder. Norma was the subject of a recent video by Operation Maple.

Ontario Shores was fined $37,500 in September after a worker suffered a serious injury while cleaning ventilation hoods in the kitchen.

The hospital is also under major investigation by the Ministry of Labour following numerous complaints about workplace violence.

Lost time injuries are almost double the rate of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, and total paid sick time hours are higher than the other three major stand-alone psychiatric hospitals in Ontario.

The hospital is beginning to respond to concerns raised by Lewis, Gunn and others. A number of recently announced initiatives are welcome. Some appear to have been prompted by Ministry of Labour orders and suggestions.

The awards will be presented at a ceremony in Port Hope on November 15.

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CBS: Deb Matthews’ indifference costing quality jobs in northern Ontario

Posted on October 31, 2012 | 1 comment

Health Minister Deb Matthews is often regarded by the media as one of the front runners to replace Dalton McGuinty as Ontario Premier – a surprise given the intense scrutiny the Minister has been under for her role in the ORNGE air ambulance scandal.

Earlier this year we ran a series of stories about the April closure of the Canadian Blood Services plasma donation centre in Thunder Bay. At the time, Matthews showed little interest in defending the centre or the needed jobs in Northern Ontario – this despite the fact that Bill Mauro, a northern MPP in her caucus, was stating publicly that something didn’t smell right about the closure.

In the legislature she accepted CBS’ explanation that the plasma from Thunder Bay was not needed even though the organization’s annual report showed significant increases in imports of American-sourced plasma.

It is interesting to compare Matthews’ lack of interest over the fate of the Thunder Bay facility with that of the New Brunswick government over the closure of a CBS processing and distribution centre in Saint John.

In late 2009 the New Brunswick Liberal government learned that CBS planned to close the Saint John facility by 2012. Both the Liberals and Conservatives opposed the centralization of the centre’s activities to Dartmouth, Nova Scotia.

They were so furious the New Brunswick government even commissioned a KPMG report to look at the option of taking the province out of CBS altogether.

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Ontario Shores: Pushing worker mental illness back into the closet

Posted on October 30, 2012 | 7 comments

Recently the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) posted bus shelter ads that noted two of three individuals with mental illness suffer in silence.

The stigma of mental illness is often linked to various forms of discrimination, including barriers to housing and employment opportunities. It can also lead to social isolation.

Stigma can be a major barrier to treatment itself.

There are many stereotypes about mental illness – many which are simply not true.

We have previously noted that individuals with mental illness are no more likely to be violent than anyone else in society. Studies have shown that those suffering from mental illness are far more likely to be the victims of violence. In the wake of our last 2008 campaign around workplace safety at CAMH, we finished with a bus shelter ad erected in conjunction with the hospital’s patient council that said as much. Our position hasn’t changed.

We heard evidence of this earlier in the year when we conducted a meeting between the North West Local Health Integration Network and many of the front line mental health workers in Thunder Bay. Receiving care “in the community” often meant housing in neighborhoods most of us would be reluctant to visit, let alone choose to live in.  Workers expressed safety concerns about leaving patients in such neighborhoods with prescription pharmaceuticals that have substantial street value. The worry is these conditions are likely to make patients a target of crime.

With all this in mind, meeting Norma Gunn was a remarkable experience.

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New Kingston rehab and mental health hospital a departure from recent P3s

Posted on October 26, 2012 | 1 comment

The decision to do a long-term private deal to build and maintain the new Kingston rehab and mental health hospital suggests the McGuinty government is ramping up its efforts once again to engage in major privatization of Ontario’s infrastructure.

In Ontario the P3 brand – P3 representing “private-public-partnerships” – has been repeatedly damaged by deals that have clearly not been in the public interest.

There is a Mike Constable comic that shows the private partner eating the public partner – a likely accurate analogy to the present situation.

Ontarians are still vexed by the giveaway of Highway 407 north of Toronto, one of the most expensive and profitable toll roads in the world. The folly of public-private partnerships was visible to all when the McGuinty government found they didn’t even have the power to limit rate hikes on the toll road.

Let’s not forget the government tried to rebrand the P3s as “alternative financing and procurement” projects (AFP) – a moniker that failed to get any traction, especially when the Canadian Council for Public Private Partnerships continued to place these projects on their website as P3s, not AFPs.

Ontario has far more P3 projects underway than all other provinces combined.

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Privacy breaches can cost $214 per record — Cavoukian

Posted on October 25, 2012 | 1 comment

 
The audience laughed when Ontario Information and Privacy Commissioner Ann Cavoukian said she got called on a weekend over a major privacy breach. “I don’t know how they got my home number,” she said teasing.

Cavoukian rushed downtown to Toronto’s Wellington Street to find thousands of patient health records strewn around as part of a set for a mini-series on 9/11. The production company had asked a recycling company to provide some paper for the scene. That they did.

Upon investigation, Cavoukian found that the health care provider had made an error, sending the documents to recycling instead of shredding.

After her story she said it was the CBC who tipped her off and that she had voluntarily given her number to the reporter. No breach after all.

The story was one of many as Cavoukian spoke October 25 at the Longwood’s Breakfast with the Chiefs forum at the University of Toronto.

Cavoukian says that you can avoid privacy by disaster by following privacy by design – by building systems intentionally with security in mind.

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Unfair exemptions to employer health tax cost province $2.4 billion annually

Posted on October 24, 2012 | 6 comments

Focused on austerity, the government appears to be ignoring tax policies that have the potential to bring in billions to the provincial treasury.

The ruthless slashing of public sector funding – including the current freeze on base funding to Ontario’s hospitals – appears to be more ideologically based than on sound economic policy.

As we have previously noted, cutting public spending also creates a fiscal drag on the economy. Public sector workers spend their earnings in the community, generating economic activity. When government puts the squeeze on them, it puts the squeeze on everybody by reducing economic growth.

We have seen how both the Harris and McGuinty governments reduced revenues by slashing the corporate tax rate. Less discussed are substantial exemptions to the Employer Health Tax (EHT), introduced in the late 1980s to replace the previous OHIP premiums.

When the EHT was introduced, it featured a graduated rate structure – the only one of its kind in Canada. For employers with annual payrolls of less than $200,000, the rate was 0.98 per cent. For employers with more than $400,000 in payroll, the rate increased to 1.95 per cent.

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Is it time for Ontario to put limits on overtime in health care?

Posted on October 23, 2012 | 1 comment

Studies have shown that excessive overtime is directly linked to incidents of medical errors. In the U.S., medical error is the eighth leading cause of death – more than motor vehicle accidents, breast cancer or AIDS.

In October’s Synergist, the magazine of the American Industrial Hygiene Association, Thomas Fuller notes that various state and international jurisdictions have already put in place limits in order to bring down medical error.

He notes 16 U.S. States have implemented regulations to limit overtime in nursing. In Japan the government recommends less than 45 hours of overtime per month and requires “administrative guidance” when overtime exceeds 100 hours.

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Ontario Shores fined $37,500 after worker suffers concussion

Posted on October 22, 2012 | 12 comments

Ontario Shores Centre for Mental Health Sciences has pleaded guilty and fined $37,500 under the Occupational Health and Safety Act after a worker was injured cleaning and replacing ventilation hoods in the hospital’s kitchen area.

The September plea bargain by the hospital included the dropping of seven other counts under the Occupational Health and Safety Act.

The Ministry of Labour inspector had determined that the worker had not received any training or instruction for the work, nor did Ontario Shores have any procedures in place to safely carry out this cleaning.

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Perth-Smiths Falls: Big cuts for a small hospital

Posted on October 19, 2012 | 2 comments

The peer review is done, but the details around the 6 per cent in cuts to the Perth and Smiths Falls District Hospital are still somewhat sketchy. The cuts are to deal with a $2.6 million operating deficit at the hospital.

Among the many cuts will be closure of 12 beds at the hospital.

The unions that represent employees at the hospital have been given some idea of the impact after receiving notice of layoffs and reductions in hours. For OPSEU, the biggest reduction is in physiotherapy – the equivalent of more than three full-time positions is being lost. In addition OPSEU is losing one full-time professional in diagnostic imaging and scaling back hours for a dietitian, health records and a staff member assigned to assist victims of sexual assault and violence.

Other positions that are either being lost or reduced include nurses in the operating room, obstetrics, emergency room, and on the medical/surgical floor. Community members will find it more difficult to get through to the hospital switchboard, with hours scaled back, along with other impacts on purchasing, housekeeping, food services, rehab, patient registration, discharge and finance.

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