Bruyère workers rally in bid to force Ottawa hospital to reverse job cuts

Bruyère Health announced in February plans to eliminate nine registered practical nurses and 46 personal support worker positions, which a union said represented 30 per cent of the workers who directly assisted its patients. Photo by Jean Levac /Postmedia

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Workers at Ottawa’s Bruyère Health are fighting back after the facility announced dozens of job cuts earlier this year.

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Staff at the hospital rallied on Sept. 10 as part of a months-long campaign they hope will convince administration to reverse the decision to cut 55 front-line jobs.

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In February, the hospital announced plans to eliminate nine registered practical nurses and 46 personal support worker positions, which the union said represented 30 per cent of the workers who directly assisted patients.

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Douglas Currier, president of CUPE 4540 and a registered practical nurse of 30 years, said the cuts had directly impacted the quality of care they’re able to provide patients. He said the PSW cuts, in particular, shifted the burden of providing personal care to nurses, who are “already stretched thin due to their own workload issues.”

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“Even before these cuts, it was really tough to get the jobs done that had to be done,” Currier said on Sept. 11.

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“I’ve never seen such a drop in the ability of staff to properly do the job and the job they want to do because there’s just not enough numbers. The whole infrastructure appears to be crumbling.”

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Hundreds of employees attended Thursday’s rally, and the union presented Bruyère management with a petition bearing 1,400 signatures of health-care workers, patients and the public at large.

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Hospital management is aware of the petition. In a statement, Bruyère Health said it understood staffing adjustments could be concerning, but any cuts wouldn’t change the commitment to “safe, high-quality and compassionate care.”

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“The staffing adjustments currently underway at Bruyère Health are related to positions that were added during the extraordinary circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic,” the hospital statement said. “These adjustments reflect the transition from pandemic-era staffing levels and are being made to align with Ministry of Health expectations and staffing models used by similar health-care organizations.”

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Bruyère Health is considered Eastern Ontario’s leading health organization specializing in aging, rehabilitation and complex care. It includes Saint-Vincent Hospital, Elisabeth Bruyère Hospital, Bruyère Health Greystone and family medicine clinics.

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The cuts are part of a broader trend of about 2,000 layoffs in the hospital sector across Ontario, the union said, with nearly 600 of the cuts in Ottawa alone.

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The Ottawa Hospital announced earlier this year it would be cutting 400 positions, representing three per cent of its workforce. The majority of those jobs are nurses, including about 200 registered nurses, and other front-line health workers.

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The Royal, which operates a long-term care home, also known as Royal Ottawa Place, with 64 beds on the grounds of the Ottawa campus, announced plans to eliminate 15 positions almost exclusively affecting nurses and personal support workers at the long-term care home

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“This is a systemic problem across the Ottawa area,” Currier said.