Hospital staff from across Ontario to rally today against the deep cuts to
services at Peterborough Regional Health Centre (PRHC)
TORONTO, Oct. 4 /CNW/ - Severe cuts to the services, staff and beds at the Peterborough Regional Health Centre (PRHC) will bring 12 busloads of hospital staff from across Ontario to join members of the community and employees of the hospital today in one of the largest protests in Peterborough in recent memory.
"The community has battled cuts to programs, beds and staffing for over a year," says Laurie Hatton, Secretary of CUPE local 1943 at the PRHC. "It really encourages us that Ontario's hospital workers want to support Peterborough to underline how deep these cuts are and to help us to encourage our MPP, Mr. Jeff Leal, to reconsider his support for them."
"Sending alternate level of care patients to unregulated retirement homes with no care standards or home to depend on a homecare system that has a 57% staff turnover and is in total disarray is turning our back on the elderly, the frail and the sick" says Maggie Jewell, Central Ontario Vice-President of the Ontario Council of Hospital Unions (OCHU). "PRHC, has too few beds now and can't cut another 20 and the equivalent of 283 staff and provide quality care. People in Peterborough and surrounding communities will wait longer for treatment, will languish on stretchers in hallways and the quality of care will be affected."
"Ontario received an increase of 6% in its health transfer from the federal government this year but our hospitals did not." says Michael Hurley, President of OCHU. "Ontario's hospitals are the most efficient in Canada and struggle to serve an aging and growing population. The Peterborough hospital is being choked for funding while the real reasons that health care spending is surging remain unchecked: drug costs, doctors' compensation and the private delivery of care. Today's protest marks the moment that Ontario hospital workers have had enough of the attack on the sick. These issues are about to explode."
For further information: Laurie Hatton, Secretary, CUPE Local 1943: 705-743-0784; Maggie Jewell, Central Ontario Vice-president, OCHU: 705-328-5932; Michael Hurley, President, OCHU: 416-884-0770
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