Contract cleaning in hospitals decried

October 22, 2008

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Tanya Talaga
QUEEN'S PARK BUREAU

Hospitals have contracted out cleaning jobs to the lowest bidder in an effort to save money while Ontario residents are lectured on how to promote proper hand washing, unionized health-care workers charge.

Thousands of patients will get a hospital-borne infection in Ontario this year like C. difficile, a bacterium that causes a deadly form of diarrhea, and the provincial government is allowing hospitals to contract out cleaning jobs to the lowest bidder, they say.

"Contracting out is a dangerous practice," said Mike Tracey, Canadian Union of Public Employees president for local 786 at St. Joseph's Healthcare Hamilton. Tracey said it is happening at St. Joseph's.

Premier Dalton McGuinty needs a "clear policy" that states Ontario won't outsource cleaners, agreed Andrea Horwath, the New Democratic Party MPP for Hamilton Centre.

At least six hospitals have outsourced cleaning in areas such as Hamilton and Ottawa, she said.

"So we have to wash our hands, but we don't have to make sure the people washing down beds, rooms, hallways and equipment are part of a system?" Horwath said.

Hiring cheap labour to clean hospitals means a less-trained staff, she added.

Scotland outsourced their cleaning jobs for years but they have recently changed that policy to bring cleaning services back in-house, she said.

"It is really quite frightening the government is not connecting the dots on this issue when other jurisdictions are," she said yesterday. "Scotland, for example, acknowledged it's a problem there and learned from it."

One Hamilton hospital is letting 40 cleaning jobs lapse in favour of using contract cleaners instead, Horwath said.

In the Legislature yesterday, Health Minister David Caplan said Ontario residents expect their hospitals to be clean and that standards are met.

"We've strengthened disease prevention and control in health-care institutions," Caplan said. He pointed to the recruitment of the University Health Network's Dr. Michael Baker to be the provincial patient safety lead and the public reporting on safety indicators such as C. difficile rates on a government website.

Toronto Star

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