Another 80 job cuts in Windsor planned for Windsor Regional Hospital

Shortly after the announcement of more than 1,000 job cuts at the Windsor Assembly Plant, Windsor faces a further job reduction and this time in Windsor Regional Hospital (WRH).

Hospital CEO David Musyj says most of the 80 staff impacted by the losses will be in the housekeeping and food services departments.  According to Musyj layoffs should not impact direct patient care and  many will attempt to accomplish by attrition and retirements.

Government of Ontario and Ministry of Health and Long Term Care have agreed that WRH should receive financial support. Even with this support, WRH has identified an additional $7.3M in cost savings to move the hospital towards a balanced operating position for the 2019-20 fiscal year. This is approximately a 0.8 per cent reduction in expenses.

“After the historic realignment that occurred five years ago we wanted to ensure we are on the ‘right path’ moving forward, make the adjustments that are necessary and for other organizations to learn from what we accomplished,” says Musyj.

Too maintain a balanced operating position on a go-forward basis, WRH will look to identify additional cost improvements as well as the additional funding actions recommended in the Optimization Report, including:

• Ongoing one-time payments of $5 million per year for a total of $25 million to offset the present working capital deficit. These funds cannot be used to balance or operations; plus
• $16.4 million in increases to the base operating budget over next four fiscal years. This assumes an annual 1 per cent funding increase.

Unifor Local 2458 has requested a meeting next week with senior management to discuss the proposed layoffs. The local will be holding membership meetings where an update will be provided.