Unions call on Ontario to act amid health-care staffing shortages, ER closures

Unions representing some 70,000 hospital workers inOntario renewed their calls Thursday for the province to address staffing shortages contributing to recent emergency room closures, suggesting measures such as raising wages and putting in financial incentives to boost hiring.

TheOntarioCouncil of Hospital Unions and SEIU Healthcare havesent a letter to Premier Doug Ford outlining a number of actionsthey say the province should take to reduce labour shortages inhealth care.

Those include repealing Bill 124, provincial legislationintroduced in 2019 that limits wage increases in public-sector contracts to one per cent a year.

Those provisions were set to remain in effect for three years,and Ford has recently said he would take inflation intoconsideration during upcoming contract negotiations with thehealth-care sector.

The letter also urges the premier to ban the use of nursingagency staff, which it says are paid two to three times more thanhospital workers; work with unions to turn part-time or casualpositions into full-time ones; and implement an "aggressive plan" to lure thousands of licensed nurses and other health-care staff not currently practising in their field back to the sector.

Calls for real-time reports on hospital staffing

The unions have also issued an open letter to theOntario Hospital Association, asking that it take several steps to improve transparency regarding the current crisis, as well as fill vacancies.

Among their requests is the creation of a website that would show in real time the staffing situation at each hospital, with greenindicating full staffing levels, yellow a full staff but with nomargin for absences, and red for understaffing or compromised care.

"The working environment for health-care workers in hospitals at the moment is terribly, terribly tense," said Michael Hurley,president of OCHU, which is part of the Canadian Union of PublicEmployees.

"This is an exhausted workforce, this is an anxious workforce. It's ground down by the pandemic, it's ground down by the lack ofsupport it's had, and it needs to be supported now in order for itto come through for the people ofOntario."

Efforts to recruit workers underway: province

A spokesperson for Health Minister Sylvia Jones said efforts to recruit and train health-care workers are already underway,including a payment of up to $5,000 for eligible nurses announced in March to help with retention.

Other measures include tuition reimbursement for nursing graduates who commit to practising in underserved communities, andfunding to bring thousands more nurses and personal support workersinto the system, Stephen Warner said in an email.

TheOntarioHospital Association said it values the hard work and dedication shown by front-line health-care workers, and is workingwith the province andOntarioHealth to make sure hospitals andother health providers have as much support as possible.

"At this critical time it is essential that everyone stand together and work to have a 'TeamOntario' approach to address thevery challenging issues facing the health-care system," Anthony Dale, the association's president and CEO, said in a statement.

"Unfortunately, this commitment to common cause was not demonstrated today by the leaders of SEIU and CUPE/OCHUduring theirpress conference."

The association said it surveyed hospitals on staffing levels this spring, with just over 60 per cent responding. Results showed atotal vacancy rate for full- and part-time permanent positions ofmore than 12 per cent for registered nurses and more than 10 percent for registered practical nurses, as of March 1.

SomeOntariohospitals warned earlier this month that emergency department closures could be a recurring issue this summer, particularly for those in smaller communities.

Communities such as Perth, Clinton, Listowel and Wingham have recently seen ERs close for hours or even days.

'The entire system is breaking down'

The OHA has previously pointed to staff shortages and capacity issues, saying these are causing backlogs across the hospital system. It said rural and northernOntariowere particularlyaffected.

Organizations representing doctors and nurses have repeatedly said workers are burned out, with many leaving their jobs as aresult.

Those sentiments were echoed by the unions and two nurses in a news conference Thursday.

"We're breaking down, the entire system is breaking down," said Justine Champagne, a front-line nurse at a Toronto-area hospital andmember of SEIU Healthcare.

Champagne said nurses typically care for four to five patients at a time, but that number has now risen to as many as seven due tounderstaffing.She said it's also "not rare" for nurses to be called back intowork as they're heading home from an eight-to-12-hour shift.

Pam Parks, a nurse who works in the emergency room of a Toronto-area hospital and a member of OCHU, said labour shortages have left the province's hospitals "on life-support."

"It's crushing to be working inside a hospital or long-term care home today, knowing that you and your co-workers are beyond burnedout and that patients and residents aren't getting seen in a timelyway or are not at all," she said.

"This is very disheartening, frustrating, mentally and physically exhausting for us on the frontlines," Parks said in asking the province for support.