Health workers warn staff cuts at The Ottawa Hospital will affect patients

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The loss of hundreds of nursing and health-worker jobs at The Ottawa Hospital will be felt by patients in the form of longer waits and reduced quality of care, health workers warned Tuesday during a noisy rally.

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The Ottawa Hospital announced in April that it was cutting three per cent of its workforce — about 400 jobs — to address financial challenges facing the health-care sector. The majority of those jobs are nurses, including about 200 registered nurses, and other frontline health workers.

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On May 5, dozens of health workers, union representatives and supporters rallied in front of the Civic campus to decry the cuts, saying hospitals are already struggling to meet demands. Their messages were aimed directly at the provincial government.

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“Health-care workers are being told to do more with less,” said Rob Gauthier, president of CUPE 4000, which represents more than 4,000 workers at The Ottawa Hospital (TOH), including registered practical nurses, PSWs and more. “As you can imagine, this is not a recipe for quality of care. It is absurd to believe there won’t be consequences for patients.”

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Among other things, he said, that could increase the risk of medical errors and undermine the health of patients, and drive workers away from hospitals, feeding into a cycle of perpetual understaffing.

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“It’s as if they want the system to fail,” he said of the provincial government, which funds hospitals. Gauthier and others criticized the growth of health care delivered by for-profit organizations at a time when public hospitals are financially strained.

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TOH is one of a handful of hospitals across the province that has announced cuts to staff in recent months as indebted hospitals are being told to balance their budgets. The Ontario government committed an additional $1.1 billion in funding to hospitals in its most recent budget, but the Ontario Hospital Association has said that is not enough for hospitals to meet growing expenses. The result is a funding gap forcing hospitals to find efficiencies, including cutting staff.

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Nursing cuts at TOH include the teams who are sent to help with areas of the hospitals experiencing surges of patients or in need of additional help, said Amy Roberts, president of the Ontario Nurses Association Local 83, which represents nurses at TOH. That includes nurses who worked in the overflow space at the General hospital known as the “garage”. Roberts said the hospital is closing that overflow space — created in a former ambulance bay — as part of the cuts.

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Rebecca Ableson, spokesperson for TOH, confirmed the hospital has closed the 20-bed surge space permanently, saying the physical space “did not meet our expectations for patient experience.” The hospital is working with clinical teams to improve patient flow and increase capacity during surge periods, in the emergency department and across the hospital, she said.

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Roberts said those cuts come at a time when there are still patients being treated in hallways. “We know hospitals need those flexible staffing options to deal with overcrowding and to prevent (staff) burnout.”

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Ontario has the lowest nurse-to-population ratio in the country, as well as the lowest per-capita hospital funding, she said.