Skip to main content

One nurse's experience with privatized food: if it ain't in the contract...watch out

Here is an account sent to me by an Ontario nurse of her experience with contracted out support services in her hospital.  I've removed the name of the company. 

"I just learned that  if something is not mentioned in the (company) contract, the company does not have to do it.  

"In our hospital, patients transported from outside the community will have a single escort with them.  There is a hostel that houses and provides meals for escorts.    When we get a sick child usually only one escort comes with them.   The escort stays in the room with the child and we would provide the escort with a meal tray.   

"Recently (the company) put a stop to it and said they would only supply trays to escorts of children 1 year old or less.  The other escorts would have to go to the hostel to either eat or get a meal ticket, everyday.  As nurses we could not believe an escort of a 2 year old would be made to leave the hospital to either eat or get a meal ticket and go to the hospital cafeteria.  We did not feel this was safe for the child left behind alone.  When we took our concerns to our nurse manager, he said (the company) could do that, if it is not in the contract.  

"We replied, (the company) works for the hospital and the hospital should make them do it.  He made it clear  (the company) does not work for the hospital, they are contracted to provide management services, they do not answer to the hospital.  He did say it was something that could be looked at when the contract was up for renewal.  For us that was not good enough.

"Subsequently, we were able to get meals once again delivered to the escorts, but we had to make it a political issue just to achieve safe, responsible care. 

The nurse goes on to note that she is particularly concerned because a "political party running in Ontario in our next election wants to contract out support services."

Indeed.  
Labels:

Comments

  1. Katherine HajerJuly 17, 2011 at 3:43 PM

    What bothers me the most about this (besides the immediate context) is that this shouldn't even be a "left-wing" thing -- this is more of a "this is stupid and ill thought-out" thing. I consider myself a moderate -- I often land on the left-wing side on issues, but not always. More and more, though, it seems to be less and less about left or right and more and more about logical versus illogical, humane versus inhumane. Whether or not an escort requires a meal has nothing to do with how old the child they are escorting is. The policy makes no sense from the get-go. Technically, it could happen in a non-outsourced situation too, but the main thing is that the letter of a contract are being put above logic.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Doug AllanJuly 18, 2011 at 2:38 PM

    Yeah -- this shouldn't be a left-wing/right wing thing. But I do think it is going to be hard to avoid in a contacting out situation...

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

More spending on new hospitals and new beds? Nope

Hospital funding:  There is something off about the provincial government's Budget claims on hospital capital funding (funding to build and renovate hospital beds and facilities).    For what it is worth (which is not that much, given the long time frame the government cites), the province claims it will increase hospital capital spending over the next 10 years from $11 billion to $20 billion – or on average to about $2 billion per year.   But, this is just a notional increase from the previous announcement of future hospital capital spending.  Moreover, even if we did take this as a serious promise and not just a wisp of smoke, the government's own reports shows they have actually funded hospital infrastructure about $3 billion a year over the 2011/12-2015/16 period. So this “increase” is really a decrease from past actual spending. Even last year's (2016-17) hospital capital funding increase was reported in this Budget at $2.3 billion - i.e. about ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Ford government fails to respond to 72% increase in COVID inpatient days, deepening the capacity crisis

COVID infections continue to drive up hospital costs and inpatient hospitalizations in Ontario. For the most recent fiscal year (April 1, 2022- March 31, 2023) hospital stays related to COVID cost $1.221 billion, according to new CIHI data.   This is about 4% of total hospital spending, creating a very significant new cost pressure beyond the usual pressures of population growth, aging, inflation, and rising utilization.   Costs for COVID related hospitalizations increased 22.2% in Ontario in 2022/23 from the previous fiscal year, rising from $999 million to $1.221 billion.  That rise is particularly notable as the OMICRON spike of late 2021 and early 2022 had passed by the the 2022/23 fiscal year.   The $222 million increase in COVID hospitalization costs came in the same year as the Ford government cut special COVID funding and, in fact, cut total hospital funding by $156 million.     In total, there were 60,653 COVID hospitalizations...
Post a Comment
Read more

The hospital crisis: No capacity, no plan, no end

While Canada has achieved universal public healthcare coverage, that does not mean conservative forces have given up trying to erode that coverage and expand corporate care where it does not currently exist. The battle has become particularly intense in Ontario under the Ford Progressive Conservative government, which is implementing serious cuts to the level of care and moving to bring in for-profit mini-hospitals. Inadequate Staffing.   Less and less of hospital spending is on staff.   Employee compensation as a share of hospital expenditures has consistently shrunk in Ontario. This is not some immutable law of hospital development.  It is in stark contrast with the rest of Canada, where compensation has become a larger share and now accounts for 67.1%. Hospitals in provinces other than Ontario now have 18 percent more staff per capita than hospitals in Ontario. Overall, if Ontario had the same staffing capacity as the other provinces and territories, there would be another...
Post a Comment
Read more