Facts missing in MUHC union claim

Re: “CAQ denounces cuts at MUHC” (Montreal Gazette, June 30) As a hospital nurse for 11 years, I can attest that nurses can become overwhelmed when the nurse to patient ratio worsens.

Denyse Joseph, head of the union representing nurses at the MUHC, has made the provocative claim that because of budget cuts there has been a decline in patient care and nurses are burned out, with many on stress leave. The usual suspect has been blamed: the health minister.

A union-sponsored petition with 14,000 signatures calling for the restoration of “proper funding” has now entered the political arena, but with it should come facts.

Joseph has acknowledged the number of beds at the MUHC is at 710, down from 832 two years ago, but she does not mention how many nurses are looking after the patients in those beds. Are there in fact fewer nurses looking after more patients? There has also been the “elimination of 200 vacant healthcare positions” due to the cuts, but why were these positions vacant in the first place?

Joseph claims the overcapacity protocol — patients are transferred out of the emergency room to the wards where staff can work together to find beds — forces health units to take a hit. That is untrue. Often patients who could be elsewhere linger on wards.

The overcapacity protocol is a way to get staff to find a way to discharge these patients so sicker ones can have a bed.

Throughout the political jousting match between the government and the MUHC, Minister Gaétan Barrette has stuck to his claim that the MUHC is funded at the same level as the CHUM: 85 per cent. Perhaps it is time union bosses produce facts to back their petition instead of what has so far amounted to propaganda. Nathan Friedland, Roxboro