Health Sciences North defends new management position
Hospital has to figure out how to start generating new 'revenue streams,' says patient services VP
A new job posting at Sudbury's hospital is raising some eyebrows as staff come to grips with $5 million in recently announced cuts.
Health Sciences North is currently accepting applications for an associate vice-president in clinical transformation and transitions.
Union leaders argue the executive posting sends a bad message at a tough time.
"It's kind of strange in a budget crunch where they haven't been able to balance their books that they can create a position," said Dave Shelefontiuk, who represents clerical and support staff at the hospital.
"If you ask pretty well 80 per cent of the employees in there, they're going to tell you that the hospital's pretty top-heavy ... so, how can they add to that section of management when they're reducing [elsewhere]?"
Changing times
The hospital's vice-president defends the new position, arguing that in a time when the way medical care is delivered is changing dramatically, someone has to oversee those changes.
"One of our key strategic directions ... is to improves the transition as the patient moves from the hospital into the community, and vice versa," said David McNeil, vice-president of patient services, clinical transformation and the chief nursing officer.
"This person's jobs will be to ... look at [business] opportunities within the community, whether that be developing services related to primary care, whether that be to move into the home nursing business, looking at assisted living, or [the] retirement home business."
McNeil said there is a hope that the person who fills this role might develop new "revenue streams" for the hospital — and in turn, perhaps create a few more jobs.
Short-term pinch
But Kelly Latimer from the union that represents the Ontario Nurses' Association at the hospital said she doesn't understand why this position is being created now.
"When I see the amount of hours that are leaving the bedside, I don't really want to be a patient in the bed because I might not even have the right classification of a worker taking care of me," she said, referring to changes that could see personal support workers doing work formerly assigned to nurses.
MacNeil reiterated that the hospital is committed to patient care, and said that "transformation" in the system is affecting everyone — not just front-line staff.
"Management's been hit," he said.
"We've reduced about six [full-time equivalencies] overall ... which represents about three per cent of our management positions. And we've hit about 35 [full-time equivalencies] in our front-line staff, which represents about one per cent, so there's adjustments everywhere."
Regardless of the vision moving forward, a new job in management may be a tough sell among staff.
According to the latest "Sunshine List", executives at Health Sciences North were among the province's top-paid employees last year.
More than 170 HSN staff members appeared on the latest salary disclosure report. More than 70 of those staff members are in administrative and management roles.