Toronto’s new digital-first hospital plagued by people problems

Workers have gripes about Humber River, but the facility’s executives say the state-of-the-art operation is a success.

Thestar.com
Feb. 9, 2016
By Sara Mojtehedzadeh

It’s been celebrated for its prescription-filling robots and digital-first mantra. But as Humber River Hospital transitions to a new 1.8-million-square-foot facility, its growing pains feel distinctly human.

Since opening its doors in October, the North York facility has had to contend with doubling its size, adding 100 more beds for patient care, and a technological revolution.

Add to all that a very analogue war of words over work conditions and a simmering labour dispute between rival unions, and you have a recipe for ruffled feathers - and, according to union rep Tim Oribine, a public health risk.

“The frustration is everywhere in that building,” said the business agent for Teamsters Local 419, which represents hospital cleaners.

While the hospital admits not everything has been perfect since the opening, it says overall the operation has been a success.

The controversy, now the subject of an Ontario Labour Relations Board case, was sparked in part by the new Humber River Hospital’s decision to subcontract out some cleaning to Crothall Healthcare, a subsidiary of corporate giant Compass Canada.

The Teamsters say the move violated the terms of its collective agreement, which forbids contracting out work that could be done by Teamsters members. It’s also created a two-tiered workforce of decently paid hospital staff and low-wage contracted employees, Oribine argues.

Compass Canada’s cleaning staff are unionized with a different organization, SEIU Local 2. Teamsters members make more than $22 an hour to clean, while SEIU cleaners start at $11.85.

“You’re risking your health. You’re risking the health of your family. You’re trying to look after the public. And the recognized remuneration is around $22.25. It sure isn’t $11.85 an hour,” said Oribine, a former staff rep with SEIU who parted ways with the union in 2009.

The Teamsters have now applied to the labour board to represent SEIU's workers, according to court documents. The hearing is pending.

Michael Downes, who is also a Teamsters rep, argues that contracting-out introduces a problematic cost-cutting, for-profit element to hospital care.

“It’s hard to put a price on health care because everybody’s life is valuable,” he said.

A spokesperson for Compass Canada said that, since the matter was before the labour board, it “would not be appropriate for us to provide any further details.”

The hospital denies breaking its collective agreement with Teamsters, and says contracting out is now common practice in hospitals.

“They bring to the table some of the expertise that we don’t always have,” Barbara Collins, Humber River’s Chief Operating Officer, said of private companies hired to perform hospital services.

Compass employees are performing different work from the Teamsters members, according to Collins: Compass was hired to maintain the hospital’s corridors and areas where there is no “direct patient care.” Teamsters employees clean patients’ rooms, where they encounter bodily fluids and hazardous materials, she said.

“There’s a big difference in the skill set of those cleaners.”

But from Oribine’s perspective, a hospital is a hospital - and its workers deserve fair wages.

According to an August job posting on Indeed.com, SEIU cleaners’ duties include light cleaning in outpatient and non-patient rooms and washrooms, gathering and disposing of garbage and bio-medical waste, and cleaning isolation rooms.

“When you just think of the human aspect to that - we’re side by side. I’m making $22.25. You’re making $11.85. Are you going to be scrubbing as hard as I am?” Oribine said.

The Teamster complaints don’t end there: the union is also unhappy about staffing levels at the sprawling facility, claiming the hospital does not have enough manpower to keep the place clean. According to the union, the hospital has faced cleaning supply shortages since opening, including lack of mops, toilet brushes, brooms, dustpans, and appropriate cleaning solutions.

“To open a $1.7-billion facility and not have enough goddamn mops is just disgusting,” he said.

Moreover, the union says staff shortages are compromising food services. It argues that meals are being delivered below the ministry-mandated temperatures required to kill bacteria and that patient meal times are erratic. That could endanger the health of diabetic patients, Oribine said.

Humber River Hospital says all of the union’s allegations are inaccurate. It says the facility has been audited regularly for infection control and hasn’t encountered any problems. According to Collins, Humber River hired 700 more employees when the hospital opened and maintains about three cleaners per hospital bed — on the high end for Ontario hospitals. In January, it passed the City of Toronto’s food safety inspection.

There have been two health and safety issues at the hospital since October, according to the Ministry of Labour. Seven orders were subsequently issued and all have been resolved. In 2014, the ministry issued an average of 3.4 occupational health and safety orders per hospital inspected.

Asked where the union complaints come from, Collins says she “honestly (doesn’t) know.”

There have been bumps in the road, the hospital executive admits. Since opening, Humber River has been far busier than expected: it was meant to see 109,000 emergency visits annually three years from now, but it’s already tracking for 127,000 in 2016. There’s the issue of 30,000 square feet of “faulty” floors that look dirty no matter how hard they’ve been scrubbed. There are still many bits and pieces needing attention - pictures that need hanging, doors that need fixing. Some 13,898 items to be exact, according to Collins.

“Was everything perfect from day one? Not when you’re moving into 1.8 million square feet,” she said.

Nonetheless, Collins told the Star she’s generally happy with how things are going. As for the union dispute with Oribine, Collins believes it will blow over.

“He gets unhappy from time to time. And then he gets happy again,” she said.

But in a hospital still ultimately powered by humans, not robots, Oribine says Humber River’s leadership would do well to listen to workers.

“I don’t know who they’re talking to. But they ain’t talking to the people who do it for a living,” he said.

“This is the tip of the iceberg.”