Ross Memorial staff warn of unsafe conditions amid hours cuts

Hospital says it has 'the right staff, in the right place, at the right time'

Recent staffing changes at Ross Memorial Hospital have created unsafe conditions for workers and patients, said health care workers represented by CUPE who held a rally outside the facility on Thursday morning.

Heather Nugent, a RPN and president of CUPE 1909, said understaffing has worsened over the last few weeks since the hospital decided to cut back on staffing hours due to lack of government funding, a story Kawartha Lakes Weekly broke here in late August.

Nugent said in her 27 years working at the hospital, she’s never seen such bad conditions. “It’s not just the nurses that run a hospital. It’s all the kitchen staff, it’s housekeeping, it’s our sterile processing department, our pharmacy department.”

With the Ross being the only hospital in Kawartha Lakes, Nugent said it’s a vital resource in the community. “Our community is growing fast, but funding does not follow. As the population grows, and our hospital needs more beds, the funding isn’t there to support us.”

“We need appropriate staffing levels that allow health care workers to provide quality care to our patients,” she said. “We are frequently witnessing an upsurge in the number of patients without appropriate staffing, which increases risk of injuries for staff and makes it impossible to meet people’s needs. The provincial government must step up and ensure our hospital is properly funded.”

Nugent said that some nurses are leaving their shifts crying, worried that they made a mistake from being too overworked.

A baseline nurse-to-patient ratio is one to four, but Nugent said some nurses are caring for up to eight patients at once. “If you’re on a surgical unit, you’ve got a patient that’s back from surgery, or just had a heart attack, those patients may take up more of your time. If you’re adding more of a workload into your day, you can’t give the quality care.”

Ryan Young, communications and public affairs officer for Ross Memorial Hospital, said the hospital is “committed to optimizing how we deploy our workforce to best meet patient needs.”

“Our hospital invests in our people and recruit to areas where there are staffing needs, while reviewing our staffing models to make the best use of our existing resources and effectively address changes in patient volumes, acuity, vacancies, and sick calls. The way to do that is by having the right staff, in the right place, at the right time, to support our teams and facilitate safe, exceptional care for our patients,” said Young in a statement.

CUPE 1909 Vice President Melissa Lotton, has worked as an RPN at Ross Memorial Hospital for 36 years, and she said conditions have gotten bad enough that staff couldn’t continue to watch patient care suffer. “We need to continue to fight back against this (provincial) government and demand proper funding to have the right number of staff to provide care for our patients from the moment they come through the door,” she told protestors.

At the Ross, protesters said hallway medicine has become the norm, and patients in the emergency room have been left waiting 15 hours for a bed. “We are tired of seeing our patients continue to be stuck in hallways,” Lotton said. “We need to take a stand and fight for our patients dignity and care, and to fight for proper staffing ratios.”

Michael Hurley, president of Ontario Council of Hospitals, said this issue isn’t unique to the Lindsay hospital. “Today in Ontario, 2,000 people are on stretchers in hallways who’re seeking care, without privacy, without being able to talk to a nurse or physician about their condition.”

“By every indicator, the Lindsay hospital needs more resources to provide a decent quality of health services to the people in this community. The abdication of responsibility by the government has serious consequences for patients who rely on these services,” said Hurley.

Nugent hopes the government is listening to hospital staff across the province. “If (Doug Ford) was a patient here today, and wasn’t seen in an appropriate time frame, or had medications being delayed, or the rooms weren’t being cleaned in a timely manner, he wouldn’t like that.”

Nugent said that staff at RMH love their jobs, but if more funding doesn’t come soon those same staff members will get burnt out. “(Staff) come here, and we stay here. We love our community, we love our hospital. We just need to get (funding) so that we can give the care patients deserve.”