Defend Public Healthcare

After the announcement by the Liberal govenrment that they would spin work off from hospitals to private clinics, Centric, a corporation with other private facilities in Canada, has now moved in with plans to buy the Shouldice Hospital in Toronto.  Shouldice is an 89 bed, five operating room hospital in Toronto with a staff of 160.  The sale price is $14,250,000. Shouldice Hospital The largest shareholder of Centric is Global Healthcare Investments & Solutions, Inc., based in the USA.   Global Healthcare's CEO formerly led one of the world's largest healthcare corporations outside the USA, Netcare. The Liberal government had said they would turn work over to not-for-profit clinics only. Centric however is a for-profit corporation listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange.   The takeover is still subject to government approvals. Centric notes that if all closing conditions are satisfied, closing is expected on or before  O ctober 15, 2012. A Shouldice insider rep

VRE Some Ontario hospitals are giving up on trying to control the superbug VRE. No doubt the hospitals are responding to the government funding squeeze on hospitals. Below, i nfection control experts offer a tart warning of the consequences of this policy . We've been downs a similar road before: past cuts to hospital cleaning (and hospital beds) helped lead to the explosion in superbug infections in recent years. In the period ahead we will see more and more examples of how hospital cuts will affect patient care.  Local hospitals isolate, others relax about super bug  Hamilton Spectator  Fri Sep 7 2012  Page: A16  Section: Editorial  Byline: Allison McGeer, MD, Kevin Katz, MD, Mary Vearncombe, MD, Toronto  'Big and   dumb' VRE not the worry it was: Local hospitals isolate, others relax about   super   bug (Aug. 30) As directors of  infection prevention  programs at Toronto hospitals, we are always   happy   to see thoughtful discussion of the issu

Public sector employment made a significant comeback in August in Ontario, according to Statistics Canada. After significant declines since April 2011, public sector employment has now made up most of the losses. With a growth of  32,300 public sector jobs in August (2.45%), Ontario is now only about 10,000 jobs behind the April 2011 public sector high.  Public sector employment is also up 7,100 jobs over the last year. In contrast, total employment fell 24,900 jobs  in August in Ontario compared with July, as private sector employment and self employment fell (22,600 and 34,500 respectively).  Total employment is, however, up 24,300 over the last year (although most of this increase came from increases in self-employment). Class of worker 2011 2012 April January March May July August Total employed, all classes of workers 6,743.00 6,746.00 6,788.20 6,761.80 6,792.60 6,767.70 Employees 5,713.00 5,708.50 5,749.00 5,704.40 5,7

Attribution: Joshua Sherurci j The Liberal plan to obtain a majority by targeting public sector workers went askew last night, with the Liberals falling to a distant third place in the Kitchener-Waterloo by-election. But they are not deterred in their chosen path. After the defeat, Dalton McGuinty promised to continue pushing his current bill imposing concessions on school board workers through the legislature, but also added  that his government plans to introduce additional legislation targeting the broader public sector this fall.   “We’ve got to find a way to hit the pause button on public-sector pay rather than make cuts to our services,” he said. What this might mean is anyone's guess. Presumably, McGuinty is not yet counting on legislating provincial government 'professional' and 'supervisory' staff -- as they are still in the midst of bargaining.  McGuinty may mean legislation targeting essential service workers -- like hospital workers -- somethi

Dalton McGuinty has once again inserted himself into the collective bargaining process and  given  the union representing over 11,000 "professional" and "supervisory" civil servants until September 9th to settle their collective agreement.    Or else.  The government and the union, AMAPCEO, have been in bargaining since July 3.  Apparently, the government believes two months is enough bargaining to allow them to fend off any constitutional challenge to legislation overriding free collective bargaining rights.  The president of AMAPCEO has said that the union has offered a wage freeze, but that the government wants the equivalent of  2% to 3% in cuts of one sort or another.  As was his method with the teachers, McGuinty talks as if he was simply stopping wage increases, rather than imposing concessions and takeaways (a line often repeated by the media, in their innocence).  “We don’t have any money for pay hikes... We may come to a point in time when we can

Dalton McGuinty has craftily stoked his campaign to change the rules for interest arbitration -- the system imposed on essential service workers who are forbidden by law from striking to settle collective bargaining disputes. The Liberals had tried to tilt the system in favour of the employers in their Budget Bill in early summer.  But they failed miserably when the New Democrats and PCs opposed the changes (for opposite reasons). After that setback, McGuinty said he would bring back legislation in the fall, with some hope of working with the PCs to pass it. On Wednesday McGuinty flagged some perks earned by police and firefighters and sternly called on municipalities to deal with them -- as he had with the teachers. The (predictable) response from local officials was renewed calls for McGuinty to introduce legislation that would tilt interest arbitration towards employers. Newspaper articles appeared and saps like the Windsor Star editorialists vigorously  demanded  that M

This morning while touring a french catholic school , Dalton McGunity tried to make nice with school teachers and suggested  that restraint was "just for a couple of years". That is not the official Liberal plan. The Liberal finance minister's July statement proposes a compensation freeze (including benefits) for new collective agreements. Even progress through an established wage grid "must be fully offset from within the total compensation package." If a collective agreement is for more than two years, the minister says the period beyond two years must also have a compensation freeze . So a change in policy? One can always hope, but I doubt it. This is more likely a bit of twisting before the crucial by-elections Thursday. It certainly wouldn't be the first time Liberal election promises were revealed to be howlers -- post-election.  (Indeed on the same school tour, McGuinty suggested  that all he is asking from the teachers is a 'pause' -