THUNDER BAY – Provincial funding changes will likely lead to a loss of nursing jobs at St. Joseph’s Hospital by the end of the year.
St. Joseph’s Care Group president and chief executive officer Tracy Buckler on Thursday confirmed the organization is looking at a $3 million shortfall, which is expected to result in a staffing reduction in December.
“We can’t sustain that. We needed to make some changes. We’ve done a lot of planning, we’ve been doing a lot of comparisons across with province with like facilities with complex continuing care and rehabilitation hospitals,” Buckler said.
“We know that our costs are higher than our peers and as a result we’ve remodeled and restructured our streams of care.”
The gap only applies to the hospital and not across the entire organization.
Buckler said the funding formula from the Ontario Ministry of Health is very complicated with a number of different components that factored together. The ministry identifies the facility’s costs and compares them to the expected costs, which is based on provincial averages.
Buckler acknowledged the hospital’s actual costs are higher than the ministry’s projected costs.
As well, part of the funding formula is based on the needs of the patients.
Buckler said a higher number of patients waiting to be transferred to long-term care facilities has driven the acuity numbers down, as they need residential care rather than specialized hospital services.
Though she could not provide a specific number of cuts, Buckler said it will primarily be registered nursing positions that will be eliminated.
“We’re really going to try to minimize the reductions as much as we can,” Buckler said.
“If there are other opportunities for employment across our multiple sites we can make those arrangements with our different union groups, then we’ll do that. If there is opportunity for some staff who might be wanting to retire we’ll always look at those options first to try to minimize the losses.”
Staff who provide rehabilitation services, such as physiotherapists and occupational therapists, will not be affected.
However, there are other positions within the hospital that might be impacted.
As part of the restructuring, the hospital is going to organize similar specialized client groups on each floor.
The second floor will house patients with medically complex needs, such as chronic disease conditions. The third floor will serve those needing rehabilitation services. The fourth floor will provide hospice and palliative care, as well as transitional care for patients waiting to be transferred to a different facility while the fifth floor will provide geriatric assessment and rehabilitative care.
