BRACEBRIDGE – Muskoka
Algonquin Healthcare employees deserve answers, not discipline, for
questioning the hospital’s plan to move lab testing out of the community,
says the Ontario Public Service Employees Union.
Muskoka Algonquin
Healthcare recently suspended two OPSEU union stewards who have been
campaigning to save lab services at the hospital.
The suspensions without pay
are the second such incident where the hospital has tried to silence the
union through discipline of activists at MAHC. The hospital had placed
letters of discipline in the files of workers after they wore campaign
t-shirts that urged the hospital not to drive away lab services.
“There are many questions
the community needs to ask the hospital administration,” says OPSEU
President Leah Casselman. “What is the true cost to the hospital of
community-based lab testing? What is in the regional lab plan, and why is
the hospital so reluctant to share this information with the community?
“Instead of trying to
silence our members with disciplinary measures,” said Casselman, “the
hospital should be working collaboratively to solve this problem. It is in
the community’s interest that everyone presents a united front to Queen’s
Park to save these local services.”
OPSEU has reason to believe
that in fact the community-based lab testing at the South Muskoka Memorial
Hospital may actually be generating surpluses, not losses, as MAHC CEO Barry
Lockhart has told the media. OPSEU calls upon the hospital to release the
financial documentation related to this program so that the community can
make a fully informed assessment of the hospital’s plan to move testing out
of the community.”
Since January, OPSEU has
also been asking for a copy of a “LHIN-based regional lab plan” referred to
in MAHC’s “third party” review of lab services.
The hospital has told the
union that they can only reveal the contents of this plan in a face-to-face
meeting. They have further told the union that the “LHIN-based
regional plan" is not LHIN-based at all, but a document prepared by an
informal group of regional hospitals.
OPSEU questions why the
hospitals have excluded the LHIN from this process, or why a plan has been
submitted to the ministry without consulting the community.
The union has complained of
unfair labour practices to the Ontario Labour Relations Board. A mediation
session is scheduled to take place in Barrie April 24.
Muskoka Algonquin
Healthcare is made up of facilities in Bracebridge, Huntsville and Burk’s
Falls.
