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CUPE 786 holding update media conference Wednesday 11 a.m.

HAMILTON, ON – The Ontario health minister says he encourages “the highest level of transparency” from our public hospitals, but “getting St. Joe’s to stick to one set of financial numbers for patient transport, is like nailing Jello to a wall,” says Domenic DiPasquale president of Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) 786.

Based on costs previously provided by St. Joseph’s Healthcare for outsourced transport including for a fee-for-service van operation and nearly $300,000 for taxi cabs, CUPE 786 put together an all-in-house transport solution to present to the hospital.

Mid-April, DiPasquale publicly urged the hospital to stop outsourcing patient transport and work collaboratively with CUPE to expand the cost-effective, in-hospital patient shuttle service.

“Now we have yet another new transport costing from the hospital. In our view this casts doubt on both sets of numbers provided by St. Joe’s. Couple this with the hospital’s recent efforts to silence us using the threat of a contract grievance and it’s pretty clear, there is no interest on the part of the hospital to be transparent,” says DiPasquale. CUPE 786 will provide an update at an 11:00 a.m. media conference tomorrow (Wednesday, May 20) at the corner of Fennell and West Fifth Street, near the new St. Joe’s campus.

Recently retired United Steel Workers Local 1005 president Rolf Gerstenberger will join DiPasquale for tomorrow’s media conference.

“What’s happening here is a very good example of how privatization of health care, drives secrecy. Corporations demand secrecy so that other businesses don’t know their business. This is exactly why public services shouldn’t be outsourced. The public deserves and needs to know how its money is being spent,” says Gerstenberger.

For more information please contact:         
Stella Yeadon
CUPE Communications
 416-559-9300