Unifor Local 2458

Union leaders say survey shows health workers reaching breaking points

Brian Macleod

Union leaders warn local health workers are trying to cope with the same high stress and understaffing strains as identified in a troubling new health sector job satisfaction survey.

“We have the same problem in Windsor,” said Tullio DiPonti, president of Unifor Local 2458, which represents about 2,500 health-care workers in Windsor and Essex County.

Long wait times in emergency rooms and heavy workloads leave many workers thinking “they can’t do it anymore,” said DiPonti, whose union represents about 4,000 health sector workers from Windsor to Tobermory.

Polling firm Nanos recently surveyed more than 750 Canadian Union of Public Employees workers, including registered practical nurses, personal support workers, housekeepers, and clerical employees.

Of those surveyed, 62 per cent said they were dealing with exhaustion and high stress levels, 41 per cent reported dreading going to work and two in five are considering leaving their jobs.

The survey findings have again triggered union warnings of a staffing crisis facing the sector and the need for action.

“The results are alarming to say the least – how are we going to keep our hospitals functioning without staff?” Sharon Richer, secretary-treasurer of the Ontario Council of Hospital Unions, CUPE’s hospital division, said in a release on the union’s website.

Those numbers are better than a Nanos survey solely of registered practical nurses in April, when 60 per cent of RPNs indicated they were considering leaving the profession and 64 per cent said they dreaded going to work.

But the new survey is an indication that the health-care sector remains in crisis, say DiPonti and Ontario Nurses Association president Erin Ariss.

“That’s where the dread comes in,” DiPonti said of a workplace situation that doesn’t appear to be improving.

“Because they know that’s an everyday occurrence and it’s going to keep on happening. They don’t see an end in sight.”

Jammed emergency rooms are a heavy load on staff, and they’re being exacerbated by the closure of smaller hospitals, which filters patients to ERs in larger community hospitals like Windsor Regional Hospital, he said.

DiPonti said Windsor needs more than two local emergency rooms to service the region.

Wait times for Windsor’s emergency departments are currently not available on Health Quality Ontario’s website, though Windsor’s wait times have typically been among the longest in the province for some time.

“Everybody, from the housekeeper all the way to the specialist to the CEO, are doing their best to take care of the residents of Windsor,” DiPonti said. “It’s not just the hospital, it’s a health-care crisis that affects human beings.”