Nurses' union concerned with PSW cuts at Guelph General Hospital

Healthcare workers are asking Guelph General Hospital to reverse its recent decision to lay off 39 personal support workers.

A rally was held in front of the Delhi Street building on Monday.

According to the nurses’ union, which organized the event, the loss of 39 PSWs will make it harder to care for patients.

“The state of nursing here at the hospital has continued to have a major impact on patients,” said Mark Zinger, a registered practical nurse and vice-president of CUPE Local 57. “I am already overworked due to the patient ratio at this point. PSWs are integral to my workload – to feed [patients], to get them out of bed, to ambulate them, to have conversations with them.”

Patricia Bools is one of the PSWs losing her job at Guelph General Hospital.

“I had an email sent to me saying I’m being laid off,” she explained, adding that it hurts to not be able to do a job she loves. “I’m a people person. I love taking care of the patients.”

Bools said her work, and that of her colleagues, is crucial to a well-functioning hospital.

“If we’re not there, most of the time they don’t get break. So they’re hungry for the 12 hours that they’re walking, or they’re exhausted by the end of the shift. It’s not fair to them. We should be there taking care of the patients.”

Rally for laid off personal support workers (PSWs) at Guelph General Hospital on Dec. 9, 2024. (Jeff Pickel/CTV News)

Responses from GGH, MOH

Guelph General Hospital said the PSWs were hired during a staffing crisis, when nursing vacancies were above seven per cent. Now that they’re in the four per cent range, the hospital said changes were necessary.

“[We’re] in a more stable staffing position and having conducted routine benchmarking work, adjustment to this position needed to be made to ensure we continue to optimize the delivery of care,” they wrote in an email to CTV News.

The nurses’ union puts the blame on the provincial government.

“If they fund the hospitals, the hospitals can make the decision to keep these staff members,” Zinger said.

Ontario’s Ministry of Health sent the following statement to CTV News: “We have increased our investments across the hospital sector by four per cent for a record two years in a row, and have added 100,000 new nurses and 15,000 new doctors since 2018, and 21,000 new PSWs over the last three years.”

While hospitals may be hiring, Zinger and the union worry nurses will still walk away from the profession due to burnout.

“That is the kind of mirage that we are seeing at this point now, that everyone’s hiring. But nobody is staying in these positions,” Zinger insisted. “We need these PSWs to keep us in these positions.”