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On the eve of the Campbell government’s announcement of deep health care cuts that’s set for Tuesday, the Hospital Employees’ Union (CUPE) says today that it received leaked details outlining the specific cuts, closures and privatization for the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority. Read the highlights and details of the document below.

Vancouver, Richmond and Providence Closures and Privatization

  1. Closure of all acute care OR/surgical, acute medical beds and emergency at UBC Hospital Koerner Pavilion (page 20)
  2. Develop a private public partnership to facilitate private delivery of surgical and urgent care services in the vacated UBC Hospital (page 21)
  3. Closure of GF Strong Rehabilitation Centre, sale of the land and consolidation of rehabilitation services at Vancouver General Hospital (page 21). This would involve the closure of Banfield extended care and the conversion of the facility into a rehabilitation facility (page 21)
  4. Close Holy Family and St Vincent Hospitals and conversion of these hospitals into independent living assisted living housing.
  5. Closure of St Vincent Arbutus extended care and St Vincent Heather site extended Care beds. This will result in a reduction of 149 continuing care beds.
  6. Closure of 64 acute care beds in Vancouver (page 27) and 14 acute care beds at Richmond hospital (page 55)
  7. Closure of 22 Psychiatric acute care beds in Richmond (page 56) and Vancouver (page 22).
  8. Reductions in funding for support services (i.e. food, laundry, housekeeping, medical records) of $17.5 million in Vancouver and at Providence.
  9. Overall decrease in emergency resources at Vancouver Hospital of $5.3 million.
  10. Redevelopment of St. Paul’s new emergency department, mental health and other clinical services through a private public partnership that could result in private ownership of the facility and conversion of St. Paul’s Hospital Burrard Building into a retail establishment

Staff Reductions

Total staff reductions in Providence, Richmond and Vancouver of 2,146 people or 1,432 FTEs

Quality Implications

The document acknowledges that these changes could result in:

  1. Longer waitlists in emergency that could negatively impact quality of care and patient safety (page 25)
  2. Reduced cleaning frequencies in patient care areas could delay discharge and have infection control implications (page 25)
  3. Reduced patient escort could cause delays and inefficiencies in OR and emergency. (page 25)
  4. Reduced sterile supply staff could cause delays in OR (page 25)
  5. Loss of skilled professional nursing staff and surgeons.(page 25)
  6. Negative impact on services to support families in crisis (page 25)
  7. Increased waiting times for placement in residential care (page 26)

The original excerpted version is available on our website at heu.org