Cuts at Quinte-area hospitals: How will care be affected?

By Tyler Renaud

BELLEVILLE – The head of Quinte Health Care and the vice-president of the provincial nurses’ union have differing views on how job cuts approved this week will affect patient services in local hospitals.

The QHC board voted unanimously Tuesday to follow through with its plan to cut 162 positions while creating 78 new positions, for a net loss of 84 jobs.

Mary Clare Egberts, president and chief executive officer of QHC, told QNet News Wednesday: “In some instances we may be laying off a registered nurse, but we may be hiring additional practical nurses or personal service workers.”

Through a new inter-professional care model, the services provided will result in “more hands-on care for the patient,” Egberts said. “And evidence shows that patient satisfaction increases with the use of this model.”

Various levels of health-care workers will combine efforts to care for patients, she explained. Registered nurses will co-ordinate a team of practical nurses and personal service workers to bathe patients, aid in washroom use and meet the general needs of each patient.

But Vicki McKenna, the vice-president of the Ontario Nurses’ Association, says quality of care will suffer under the new team-based model.

“The research is really clear – team-based care often leads to fragmented care, where people are only doing pieces of the care rather than caring for the patient through their entire shift or day,” McKenna told QNet News. “Things can get missed. Patients could suffer more complications and end up staying in hospitals longer.”

McKenna said the impact of the staffing cuts will be severe.

“We are looking at over 100,000 hours of registered nursing care per year that’s being cut out of the system” at QHC’s hospitals. “That is just beyond imaginable.

“For Quinte West, looking at Trenton (Memorial Hospital),  and Belleville (General Hospital) – these cuts are really going to be devastating to those communities.”

The hospitals could save money by having more registered nurses, she said.

“The research also shows that more registered nurses there are at the bedside, the better patients do. They stay in hospitals for less time, they have fewer complications and they do better overall.”

But McKenna said she doesn’t place the blame on the QHC administration.

“The reality is that hospitals have been under this umbrella of frozen budgets for four years now, and quite honestly, hospitals are not left with a lot of options except to reduce services.

“Our MPPs, our provincial government, and our federal government for that matter need to step up to the plate. Health care is a critical service and we cannot have it continue to be lost. We need healthy people; we need healthy Ontarians to be productive; we need healthy people so they can continue to participate in society.”

The changes at the local hospitals will be in place by April 2016.