It looks like job cuts are coming to another medical facility. This time the job cuts are to Scarborough Hospital and unlike some of the previous job losses that we have covered these cuts are not to member of the administrative staff. This time the cuts will impact members of the clinical staff, specifically the Registered Nurses who care for patients. News of the layoffs came not from the facility, but from the nurses union. The Ontario Nurses’ Association recently released a statement that warned of job cuts in the near future of the facility. The union expects that these cuts will have a serious impact on the quality of care that patients to the facility receive, especially those patients who are most in need.

Andy Summers, the regional vice-president of the union, said the following about the cuts and the care in the facility to a reporter for The Star, “All the research shows that registered nurses are the backbone of health care. How can removing registered nurses from care improve quality outcomes? It can’t. You can’t give cheaper health care and get better outcomes….If you decrease the amount of nurses in an ICU or emergency department and you ask one nurse to now look after two or three critical patients, things can go wrong very, very quickly.”

Officials for the union were recently notified that the hospital was going to cut back on 60 jobs at the facility, all of those cuts will be to Registered Nurses. We do know that the bulk of the positions, about 50 will be full time members of the staff and that the remaining 10 will be from part time positions. The loss of these 60 jobs actually represents a loss of about four percent of the hospitals staff. Currently, the facility employs about 1,500 nurses. We do not have any specifics on the timeline of the layoffs or which of the hospitals units the layoffs will come from.

An official statement from Dave Bourne, a spokes person for the company, made to the same reporter said the following about the job cuts to come:

“Like many hospitals, TSH is facing significant budget challenges due to rising costs for drugs, supplies and negotiated wage settlements. But by reallocating resources appropriately and eliminating vacant positions, we believe we can achieve our fiscal target while maintaining program quality and patient safety.”

The hospital did not outline any plans for keeping care quality and safety the same. Also, they confirmed the layoff of 85 members of the clinical staff, though at the current moment we do not know were the other 25 job cuts are going to come from, since we do know they are not registered nurses. The hospital is not giving out any further details about the cuts at this time. The cuts may come from other non-union positions such as patient aids, technicians or lab personnel. All of these positions have a direct impact on clinical care, but do not enjoy the protection of the nurses union.