A new study entitled Running on Empty released and presented in Kingston warns that Ontario’s hospital workers are in “deep turmoil”.
At the beginning of the year, CUPE’s Ontario Council of Hospital Unions (OCHU/CUPE) presented the findings of a poll amongst hospital workers in Kingston, revealing that 44 per cent of workers are considering leaving their job within the next year, and 43 per cent say they dread going to work.
Researchers Dr. Margaret Keith, Dr. James Brophy and OCHU-CUPE president Michael Hurley conducted 26 interviews and a poll surveying 775 hospital workers to put together the study.
“Health care workers are warning us about the future of our public system,” says Dr. Keith. “They expressed a profound sense of dissatisfaction, despair, sorrow, anger, and frustration about their working conditions and the quality of patient care. There was an overarching sense of being unsupported, overworked, and disrespected, which is being driven by chronic underfunding and understaffing.”
