Ontario Hospital Calls Claims About Kitchen Staff Helping Nurses 'False' & 'Dangerous'
The president has accused the union of spreading "blatant misinformation."
An Ontario hospital is firing back after a union representing more than 60,000 healthcare workers made claims that kitchen staff had been called in to help during a nursing shortage over the weekend.
According to the SEIU Healthcare union, "dietary aides" (a.k.a. kitchen workers who prep meals for hospital patients) were asked to team up with registered practical nurses at the hospital in Orangeville due to staffing shortages.
However, the president and CEO of Headwaters Health Care Centre, Kim Delahunt, called the claim "false" and "dangerous," and accused the union of spreading "blatant misinformation."
"We are very disappointed that SEIU has created a false narrative at the expense of the hospital and our hard-working staff, who have given everything they have over the past 22 months in the service of their community," Delahunt wrote in a January 24 statement.
Delahunt said at least one patient expressed concerns to the emergency department because they "didn't want to be cared for by kitchen staff."
"To be clear: Only trained health care professionals provide patient care at Headwaters Health Care Centre, regardless of external or internal circumstances. Some non-clinical staff may perform duties outside of their usual scope of work occasionally when necessary but rest assured that these do not include caring for patients," Delahunt said.
President of SEIU Healthcare, Sharleen Stewart, told Narcity that while she agrees that staffing challenges are a province-wide issue, some of Delahunt's statements are untrue.
"I mean the documents that she sent out to the staff on Friday [were] saying, you know, because of the staffing shortage, can some of you please offer the work over the weekend?" Stewart said and added that while she can understand what Delahunt is trying to say about Headwaters' reputation being affected, Stewart is more concerned about the health services being provided to the public.
"I make no apologies for that," she said.
According to Stewart, nurses contacted her to express concerns that dietary aides were being asked to come on the floor to help with calls like when patients need assistance going to the bathroom.
"Their exact words to me were, 'Look, we appreciate the helping hands but they have to be the right hands, meaning we have a nursing crisis. Nobody's dealing with it. Sending in non-nursing staff is not going to make my job any easier because they are limited to what they can do','" Stewart shared.
Staffing challenges are not uncommon for Ontario as of late. Earlier this month William Osler Health System, which oversees Brampton Civic Hospital and Etobicoke General Hospital, declared a "Code Orange" at their hospitals because of an increase of COVID-19 patients in combination with staffing challenges that impacted the hospital's capacity.
Ontario also reinstated Directive 2 on January 5, instructing hospitals to "pause all non-emergent and non-urgent surgeries and procedures in order to preserve critical care and human resource capacity,"
Furthermore, the Registered Nurses Association of Ontario recently called Ford's plan to move the province out of Step Two by the end of the month "premature," stating that reopening will "prolong the current health system crisis."