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'Dirtiest in Ontario': Unions say more than 100 cuts looming for HSN

Ontario Health Coalition joins CUPE, Council of Hospital Unions to raise the alarm over hospital cuts
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(L to R) CUPE 1623 president Dave Shelefontiuk; secretary-treasurer of the Ontario Council of Hospital Unions (OCHU) Sharon Richer; Ontario Health Coalition executive director Natalie Mehra. (Matt Durnan/Sudbury.com)

The Ontario Health Coalition has launched a campaign to save services at Health Sciences North, saying that more than 100 cuts loom over Sudbury's one and only hospital.

The health coalition held a press conference on Nov. 9, ahead of a town hall meeting that is scheduled for Nov. 12 at the Steelworkers Union Hall. 

Attending Friday's presser was Ontario Health Coalition executive director Natalie Mehra, who was joined by CUPE 1623 president Dave Shelefontiuk, Sharon Richer, secretary-treasurer of the Ontario Council of Hospital Unions (OCHU), both of whom rallied on Wednesday, Nov. 6 to call for a stop to cuts at HSN.

"At the moment there are more than 100 full-time equivalent staff, including nurses, health professionals, and patient support staff across dozens of hospital departments that are slated to be cut," said Mehra.

"This comes after Sudbury's hospital capacity has already been dramatically downsized for decades. You are at a point in this community where you don't have enough capacity, as it exists, to provide for the needs of the population. I was shocked to hear the scope of the cuts that are being proposed in this community."

Health Sciences North is often operating at 100-per-cent capacity or more, resulting in patients staying in lounges and hallways - thus the term "hallway medicine," which the Ford government pledged to put an end to while campaigning.

"The government ran the election promising that they would end hallway medicine and that they cared deeply about mental health and were going to make these investments in mental health and so on," said Mehra.

"They didn't breathe a word about cutting OHIP-plus coverage for people with sick children who require their medications to be covered. Virtually all of the gains that we won in the 2018 budget have been systematically rolled back."

Ontario's mental health budget was cut back by $330 million, most of which goes to the province's hospitals. Sudbury was also promised funding for a safe injection site, but that too has been put on hold.

"In addition to these cuts, a number of social programs and benefits that create equity and alleviate poverty have been put on the chopping block," said Dorothy (Dot) Klein, chair of Sudbury's health coalition.

"This affects our most vulnerable population. As a community we must tell Premier Ford and the provincial government that this is not acceptable. We must stand together and voice a strong unified voice that we do not want our public services and health care cut."

The word "cuts" conjures up images of employees being handed pink slips and walked out the door of their place of employment. While this may be the case in some instances, many of the cuts that have already happened at HSN, and the proposed cuts, are in the form of re-assignments.

It's not people that are being cut, it's positions. Hospitals are being told to move staff around to different departments, but in doing so, they are not filling the vacated positions. Another form of cuts are through attrition, where senior staff are retiring and not being replaced, stretching the staff that remains even thinner.

"Since March, when we met with the CEO (Dominic Giroux) and they announced how many cuts were coming, our bargaining units have 52 full-time equivalent positions, that's over a 100,000-hour reduction this year since March," said Dave Shelefontiuk, CUPE 1623 president.

"That's not including part-time hours that are being reduced. So if I'm away or someone is away or on sick time, they don't replace those shifts and that's getting to be a common practice now. In the cases where they do choose to replace a shift, it's five hours instead of seven and a half. That's a lot of work that's not getting done."

Health Sciences North however, has indicated that $4.8 million in funding from the Northeast LHIN has allowed them to sustain a number of full-time equivalent positions.

"Following the budget validation, HSN received one-time funding from the NE LHIN of $4.8 million dollars to sustain certain clinical services until March 31, which would have otherwise been eliminated," said Jason Turnbull, HSN communications in an email to Sudbury.com.

"At that time, HSN indicated that the number of positions impacted by the implementation of the budget had been reduced to approximately 51 (FTE) unionized positions, impacting approximately 64 people."

Shelefontiuk reiterated a point he made during Wednesday's rally, stating that the cleanliness of Health Sciences North is sliding as hours for frontline staff like housekeepers, laundry workers and cleaning staff are all being reduced.

"Health Sciences North is one of, if not the dirtiest hospital in Ontario," said Shelefontiuk. "This is because of the reduction to housekeeping staff. The linens, which I don't even want to get into, we have surgeries being cancelled because of issues with the linens. The Ford government made that promise that he's going to end hallway medicine, that there won't be any job losses, I can tell you that's been happening here constantly."

As hours and positions are being cut, some staff are having trouble making ends meet. Shelefontiuk says that some of his part-time staff have been pushed to making use of the Sudbury Food Bank to feed their families.

Additionally, with added workloads to frontline staff, morale has hit a low point, especially among nursing staff.

"Our hospital is always running at 110-per-cent capacity or higher which means there's less access to quality patient care," said Michelle Beaudry, bargaining unit president for ONA (Ontario Nurses Association), which represents 840 members.

"Length of stay increases at the hospital which compounds our capacity problem. My bargaining unit has suffered 32 health care professional job losses and we've lost numerous hours of part time work. Managers just cut hours out of our budgets. Those areas are x-ray, MRI, CT scanner, ultrasound, the lab, pharmacy, all of the therapies, and mental health and addictions programs.

"How can we do this with those amount of cuts?" Beaudry said. "Our part-time workers receive less shifts as well. Right now it takes part-time workers 10 years to get a full-time job, so now that they've cut their hours it's going to take even longer. How do we get people to come to the hospital, get training and experience and work as a part-time worker when there's no chance of getting a full-time job and supporting your family?

Sudbury's health coalition and the Ontario Health Coalition, in partnership with ONA, Ontario Council of Hospital Unions (OCHU), and CUPE will be hosting a town hall meeting Monday night to call on the provincial government to put a stop to cuts and start adequately funding Sudbury's hospital.

The meeting will be held at the Steelworkers Union Hall (66 Brady St.) on Nov. 12, starting at 7 p.m. 
 


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