HEU fears worst

HEU fears worst
By Dan Hilborn, Burnaby NOW assistant editor
Published Sept. 11, 2002

Unionized hospital workers will be waiting for the hammer to drop when the year-old Fraser Health Authority holds its first public board meeting in Surrey tomorrow afternoon.
Don Allen, vice-chair of the Hospital Employees Union, local 2, said the rationale for the layoffs was announced last April when the health authority released its clinical services directional plan.
"We haven't had any big rounds of layoffs yet, and we expect them later this month or early in October," said Allen, who works at Burnaby Hospital. "If they're going to reach the numbers they want, they'll have to start laying off people."
Union members anticipate the health authority will begin the layoffs slowly, possibly targeting single departments at individual hospitals instead of a wholesale job losses on a region-wide basis.
Barry Forbes, chair of the FHA, said there will be no job cuts announced this week. However, he added, the health authority cannot continue to keep doing business the way it has in the past.
"Put it in this context," Forbes said Tuesday morning. "We outlined a plan that addresses several issues, not the least of which is the financial issues facing every health authority. When you talk to people who work within the health authority - the real professionals - you constantly hear from people that they certainly recognize the need for change.
"This plan is about change, so in that context, I would say yes, there is change afoot and that it is something that will have an impact on the way in which we delver services."
Allen said the union has still not seen any specific numbers of people who may be laid off, but fears up to half of his union's membership could be gone by the end of the three-year plan.
The clinical services plan is the same document which outlined the proposed elimination of funding for St. Mary's Hospital in New Westminster and closed the intensive care unit at Delta Hospital.