Tommy Douglas: Not Dead Enough

Is it CUPE or is it SGEU that govern the janitors and the cleaners?

Either way, I hope the point got across.

http://www.cupesaskhcc.ca/

"CUPE is the largest health care union in Saskatchewan, representing over 13,000 members. We represent a wide range of health care employees in five major classification areas: clerical, technical, nursing, support and plant operations."

Still trying to find out if Cam Broten is related to Ontario Liberal cabinet member Laurel Broten. They sure share the same political viewpoints.

My favorite sport in hospitals is finding a prominent booger stuck to a bathroom wall, drawing a small circle around it and dating it. Usually not gone the next day.

Could be a fun picture post for somebody's blog. Not mine, I can't stand being in hospitals.

That's just the stuff you can see though. Imagine what unionized -nurses- get away with.

So if we pay them more they'll actually do their jobs? Or should they do their jobs because we are paying them? Even my own doctor wouldn't want to go to our local hospital because of repeated Norwalk Virus. When my wife was in to have a mastectomy, she was placed in a room with a woman who had continuous diarrhea, and was undiagnosed. What sense does it make to put someone who is post-surgical with an undiagnosed (possibly and probably contagious) patient?

And is the hospital filthy because the workers are union, or because too many of the cleaning staff come from cultures where filth is the norm? Or both? Or is it politically incorrect to even ask?

Were I Mrs. Stewart's son or daughter and I could have afforded it at all, I'd have left a bottle of Bushmills where the nurses and cleaning staff would be sure to see it, or a fifty-dollar bill, if the staff were too Islamic for comfort. The room would have been spotless by the next morning.

In the real world, if you want something, you pay for it.

40 yrs ago my X worked at a local horsepital, not much has changes, 'cept skin color and union strength

Well said Kate. That is exactly the problem. Many do their work they are paid for, but many do not and don't give a rip as the union will cover their backside to the hilt.

Cleaning services should be privatized.

Well ya know, I am far from a germiphobe but I make frequent use of those nice little hand sanitizers prominent in Hospitals, Nursing Homes, Retirement homes and even grocery stores even Wallymart.

But then I don't discriminate....I HATE EVERYBODY.....

This is a problem on so many levels - cleaning staff don't feel that they have anything important to contribute to the health care system or patient health (and that's problem for managers since they have NOT reinforced those principles to cleaning staff); supervisors are clearly NOT doing their job to insure that work gets done correctly and promptly; unions are not concerned unless they can link this to the poor staff person who is overworked and under paid; and finally the cleaning themselves who have no pride in their work and are only interested in getting the minimum amount of work done for the maximum amount of reward (as in a salary that comes regardless of the quality of the work).

Is there a solution - only if the government and the health district is going roll some heads. I would suggest that ALL staff in the housekeeping department lose their jobs and are hired back only on the condition that work is done to a high standard and anyone (manager, supervisory, cleaning staff) will be fired if it is not. Will that happen - not bloody likely

Short-staffing and cutting corners probably because the money has been spent on the nurses early retirement and her unreduced, indexed pension.

When my mother was a nurse at a Catholic hospital, every patient was treated with the utmost care, every staff member saw their job as a vocation and the floors were so clean one could eat off of them.

How are hospitals now? Union-run, dirty and everything is a step on the bureaucratic or payscale ladder.

Attitude, is my point.

Osumashi Kinyobe::

Good lord, man. Are you nuts? You are going to have poor old Dickhead Slater going ballistic when he reads what you wrote about a Catholic hospital. Surely you must know he believes the Pope is spreading disease in our dirty hospitals.

Mora Davies is the head of Saskatoon District Health. She was also running the show when the NDP was in power. The health district seems to think it is more important to give drug addicts a million needles each year and neglect honest taxpaying citizens while in the hospital. The Saskatoon Health District is bloated with management. Vice presidents to the CEO, managers, assistant managers and so on. A whole group of pencil pushing wannabe socialist losers. My wife works in housekeeping at RUH and she is calling the RN who is making the fuss a god dam liar. Every room on the wards get cleaned every day. Toilets get cleaned every day. My wife breaks her back every day for 17.35 per hour. She gowns up to clean rooms with people infected with AIDS, C-DIFF, MRSA, TB, HEP C, and all sorts of other diseases. The union is SEIU WEST. The contract expired 20 months ago. She is being offered a 1.5 percent wage increase, that turns out to be .25 cents per hour raise. She does her job with a great deal of professionalism and care. By the way, she doesn't have a stock broker on speed dial on her phone. Four years ago the nurses received a 38 percent raise. After that contract ran out the nurses received a 2 percent one time payment and a 2 percent raise the following year. Brad Wall's sister is a nurse. Mora Davies makes about 420,000 dollars a year. The housekeepers are at the bottom of the hill at 17 dollars per hour and the shit always flows downhill. I would not put too much trust in what Cam Brotten says. The NDP over a 30 year period got us into this Health Care Mess. It can't be fixed overnight. My wife is white for all you people who only see immigrants.

The RC hospital in this area is run by an order of nuns that have shrunken to a very small number but it is still run to their standards. It is spotless, but now it is used for day surgery only. The linoleum floors gleam, but in the other hospital the floors are noise-proofed (carpet) and filthy throughout.
Who sets the standards in the hospitals?

I defy anyone to go in any hospital and figure out who the boss is. Here in my small BC town the local hospital appears to be ran by the nurses.

What business runs well when there is no accountability?

Hospital infections are rampant, they were unheard before unions took control of the workers. Now they don't have any reason to finish the job,if the clock says it time to quit they drop the mops and rags and run off. They cannot be dismissed, they are protected from their employers by their unions. MEANWHILE some people die from severe post surgery infections. It's not all the cleaning staff either, it's also some pretty poor septic habits by those who do hands on care. I also know the nurses today would not pass muster with those back in the sixties and seventies when they would not be allowed to dress like slobs with dirty shoes. You had no trouble identifying who the nurses were.

straight at 'em - it's good to see that things have not changed.