Demands include reduced contracting out of housekeeping and lower occupancy rates
Unions across Canada are using recent “superbug” outbreaks to press health authorities to stop contracting out housekeeping services and reduce hospital overcrowding.
Ten Ontario communities have confirmed outbreaks in recent weeks, the worst in Niagara and Guelph where several people have died. In all, there have been over 20 deaths linked to outbreaks of C. difficile in Ontario since late May.
Hospital- acquired infections affect about 250,000 patients in Canada a year and result in about 8,000 deaths. Although the three main superbugs — C. difficile, MRSA and VRE — are in every hospital in the country, unions say health authorities could be doing more to stop them.
The Alberta Union of Public Employees recently released a 15-minute documentary that follows Shirley, a housekeeper at Calgary’s Foothills Hospital, as she scrubs down the rooms of infected patients.
The video, available on YouTube, features Dr. Stephanie Smith of the Division of Infectious Diseases at the University of Alberta, as well as two patients — including a nurse — who have suffered C. difficile infections.
Guy Smith, president of AUPE, says the documentary is intended to stress the role of housekeepers as part of the healthcare team — a point underscored by the doctor in the documentary.
“That kind of work is not recognized enough,” he says. “They’re part of the healthcare team, yet it’s an area that’s constantly under attack.”
In Ontario, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) has been aggressive in its campaign to stop contracting out following the outbreak at Niagara-area hospitals.
Sharleen Stewart, head of the SEIU, which represents more than a thousand nurses, aides and hospital staff in the area, said frontline staff repeatedly warned hospital executives that they were putting patient safety at risk by outsourcing responsibility for infection control to Aramark, a U.S. corporation.
She claims the company has cut corners by using “cheap” chemicals to increase profits.
“The result has been a breakdown in infection control and a loss of life,” says Stewart.
In Alberta, where a new and more powerful superbug was discovered last summer, and most housekeepers still work directly for Alberta Health Services, Smith hopes the video will impress on the public the importance of keeping it that way.
“When these services are contracted out, there’s a disconnect. They’re not directly accountable and there’s not a clear mandate or direction,” he says.
While contractors are accountable to the health authorities that employ them, Smith said there’s higher turnover in private firms that often pay lower wages and benefits.
“There’s not a connection to the hospital,” he says. “Staff have to be committed to the team. That’s not always the case in contracting out.”
The Ontario Council of Hospital Unions (CUPE), on the other hand, is using the recent outbreaks to call for an end to overcrowding.
“An ongoing reduction in the numbers of hospital beds in Niagara and across Ontario has driven up bed occupancy and created the conditions for the transmission of hospital acquired infections,” said president Michael Hurley in a release.
The union has been touring the province with a mobile theatre set of a hospital room to demonstrate the effort and time required to effectively clean a room. It is also holding a conference on medical errors and hospital acquired infections next spring.
Back in Alberta, the documentary posted by AUPE makes no direct mention of the union, contracting out or overcrowding. Smith said this was intentional. The goal is to demonstrate the gravity of the problem to Canadians.
“Public services are constantly under attack,” he says. “We’re not just defending our members. We’re defending the public services themselves.”
