The sound of cars honking and Twisted Sister’s 1984 track We’re Not Gonna Take It was heard on Lakeshore Road behind Joseph Brant Hospital on Wednesday afternoon, as dozens of CUPE members protested 10 job cuts at the hospital.
The 10 jobs that are being lost include seven housekeeping positions, an operating room assistant and an occupational therapist – which CUPE says are all vital to patient well-being.
“Right now we’re being stretched beyond our means, and these cuts are going to stretch us even further,” Jacqui Curtis, president of Local 1065 and a registered practical nurse at Joseph Brant said. “There’s not as many resources, but we’re expected to do the same things for our patients. We’re jeopardizing patient safety to get our balanced budget.”
Curtis added more and more non-union positions are being added within the hospital, not the types of positions on the front lines that need more numbers.
The hospital, which has more than 2,000 full- and part-time staff, as well as volunteers, suggests the cuts will not impact patient care.
“We want to assure the Burlington community that these changes have had no impact on patient care or the delivery of healthcare services at Joseph Brant Hospital. Patient care remains our top priority,” a representative from JBH wrote in a statement to BurlingtonToday. “To be clear, no employees have lost their jobs. The affected positions were vacant and were eliminated as part of a larger strategic optimization effort to improve efficiency. Workloads and schedules were rebalanced, and part-time positions were created to increase operational flexibility and to better meet patient needs.”
Protesters outside the hospital chanted and held signs as speakers from CUPE spoke into a microphone with hopes those inside the hospital could hear them.
Michael Hurley, president of CUPE’s Ontario Council of Hospital Unions, added the positions that are being cut are – contrary to what the hospital suggests – critical.
“Hospitals in Ontario have a $2-billion collective deficit problem, and you are seeing it play out at Joe Brant with the elimination of cleaning staff, in the operating room, and occupational therapists,” Hurley said. “Well, you would think there was not demand for this service, but in fact in Ontario there were 250,000 people waiting to get into hospitals like this one for surgeries, and 2,500 of them died on the wait lists.”
Hurley added the number of people waiting for beds has increased from 850 in 2018 to around 2,000 today.
The protest comes only days after Ontario Premier Doug Ford announced a new mental health unit will be added to Joseph Brant in the next few years. In the crowd, protesters shouted that the hospital does not care for its own employees' mental health.
“Frontline workers are critical to the functioning of a hospital, but it seems that this government has it in for us,” Curtis wrote in a press release. “You’d think the government would be investing in improving our working conditions and providing us resources to best serve patients. Instead, they cut our salaries with Bill 124 and demand that we do more and more with less – which is why we have a staffing crisis. These new cuts will drive more staff to leave and force patients to wait and wait.”
