TORONTO – Cathryn Hoy, a registered nurse and president of the Ontario Nurses Association, said of Ontario’s health care system, “We’re the Titanic and we are sinking, fast.”
In a letter addressed to the Ontario Hospital Association and the provincial government, Service Employees International Union Healthcare, Ontario Council of Hospitals Union, and CUPE are demanding full transparency and staff support to fix the health care crisis.
Efforts to quietly manage the health human resource crisis by hospital senior management are failing families and the public deserves to know more about what is leading to closed doors, longer wait times, and service disruption inside Ontario hospitals,” said Sharleen Stewart, SEIU Healthcare. “That’s why we’re calling for an all-hands-on-deck approach to deal with the dire staffing crisis and the growing wave of emergency room closures in Ontario’s hospitals. Today, nearly 60% of nurses said they feel burnt out all the time and in need of mental health support as a result of their job in Ontario hospitals. This is what happens when hospital executives treat staff as a commodity instead of as people and the consequence is today’s wave of hospital ER closures.”
SEIU Healthcare and OCHU/CUPE represent 70,000 hospital workers across Ontario.
According to CUPE, “what patients are experiencing is the consequence of a dangerous game of managing our public hospitals on a razor’s edge in the name of efficiency. Ontario hospitals are no longer safe places to work, and increasingly unreliable institutions for patients to receive care,” said Stella Yeadon, CUPE Communications.
Earlier this year, the Ontario government revised its budget plans from $6.8 billion to $185.1 billion, but only spent $177.9 billion, according to the Financial Accountability Office of Ontario’s annual report.
All sectors spent below their budget plan with the overall total spending being $7.2 billion less than planned.
Although, the net savings will be used to reduce both the budget deficit and Ontario’s net debt; however, $1.8 billion saving health care in the healthcare sector could have been better spent on providing healthcare workers with a pay increase for working exhausting extended hours during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We are alarmed that to date we have seen no sense of urgency from the provincial government in the face of the unprecedented threat communities are facing,” said Michael Hurley, President, OCHU/CUPE “It is not acceptable that communities like Alexandria and Wingham (and many others) are living this summer without functioning and reliable emergency departments. It is not acceptable that ER waits in major urban centres are skyrocketing or that other vital patient services being closed to sustain emergency operations. We expect a very vigorous response from the provincial government. Without a meaningful action plan, conditions will only deteriorate further.”
Patient care is gravely affected as emergency departments aren’t able to meet the demand of patients needing emergency care.
The Ontario NDP’s Health critic France Gélinas is calling on Health Minister Sylvia Jones to address the province’s hospital crisis.
“Day after day, the staffing crisis in our hospitals is getting worse. Patients are in pain, waiting hours in ERs, having surgeries delayed again and again, and even being sent home when they desperately need care,” said Gélinas. “Health care workers and experts are literally begging the provincial government for help. Workers are exhausted and demoralized by the lack of government support.”
Inside the open letter to the Ontario government, CUPE urges Premier Ford to consider working with union leaders on a strategic action plan without any more delays.
Their plan includes ideas like:
- Reach out to the thousands of nurses, PSW, paramedical, service and other staff who are no longer working and recruit them back to work. The College of Nurses reports over 15,000 nurses is licensed and not practicing. Many thousands of PSW and support staff have left the sector. It’s time for an aggressive plan to entice these workers back into the hospital workforce.
- Enable all staff to work to their full scope of practice. Despite significant advances in training and licensed competency for many health care professionals, they cannot contribute to their full scope of practice at the hospital. This waste of human talent could ameliorate current pressures.
- Ban the use of nursing agency staff. These agencies charge 2x and 3x what hospitals pay their own staff, and they bleed away resources from round-the-clock and weekend staffing, worsening morale and weakening the continuity of care.
- Real wages must increase. In any other labour market with skill shortages, wages would increase to retain and recruit. But real wages are being cut for Ontario’s health care workers and this policy is leading to an exodus of staff and demoralization. We ask you to repeal Bill 124 and work with unions and employers to bring about improvements acceptable to all parties.
- Put in place financial incentives. Include in your soon-to-be tabled post-election budget meaningful financial incentives to bolster short-term hiring efforts for all health care workers.
- Work with unions and employers to increase the amount of full-time work. Over half of the CUPE and SEIU health care membership work part-time or casual. Turning these workers into full-time employees will significantly increase health care capacity and create a more tempting work environment.
- Work with unions and employers to reduce workplace violence in healthcare. Our research indicates that workplace violence in health care is widespread and is a significant factor discouraging healthcare retention.
