Note the pay increases for some of the admins! Ain't that a crock? http://www.theenterprisebulletin.com...aspx?e=2700738
Officials with the Collingwood General & Marine Hospital are defending their decision to cut five front-line nursing positions as public unease mounts.
Steve Soychak, the vice-president and chief financial officer for the G&M, said the hospital is grappling with tough decisions as it tries to balance its budget after years of deficits and with a provincial deadline to do so looming.
I've talked to people around here and no one can remember the last time we made front-line cuts," said Soychak.
One of the things that's galling the public and presenting a public relations problem for the hospital as it pleads poverty is the startling increase in salaries for top management positions such as president Linda Davis.
According to the figures published by the annual Sunshine List, Davis received a 20% pay increase this year. Other stats show that payment for her position -- and for similar positions -- has increased by as much as 80 per cent in the last decade or so.
That includes other health care professionals, such as Medical Officers of Health. A new provincial pay scale was introduced earlier this year for the MOH positions around the province. In some cases, notably in the Grey-Bruce Health Unit headed by Dr. Hazel Lynn, the pay raises were massive, in the order of $125,000.
The Simcoe-Muskoka District Health Unit was asked earlier this year for a comment on the issue, but little information was forthcoming about pay raises there. Most health units and the counties that oversee them have treated the issue as a confidential personnel matter, freezing the public out of knowing the specifics.
Simcoe-Grey MPP Jim Wilson also weighed in on the issue as well, putting the blame squarely on executive salaries.
"In my view, it's Mr. McGuinty's Local Health Integration Networks (LHINs) that are the primary culprits," said Wilson. "As I've noted before, these government agencies have spent $176 million on salaries and administration since 2006. While they were only formed four years ago, that hasn't stopped them from increasing executive salaries by a whopping 213%.
"In fact, the number of people making over $100,000 has more than doubled in four short years."
So while patients, seniors and families in Collingwood, Wasaga Beach, Clearview and The Blue Mountains face cuts in front-line services at the General and Marine Hospital, the salaries and benefits for provincial employees at the LHINs continues to grow, said Wilson. "It's an example of priorities gone wrong."
Davis and Soychak said the 20% increase for her salary was somewhat misleading. Much of the increase was attributed to be buyout of unused vacation time for 2009, both Davis and Soychak said.
Davis's actual raise was five% for 2009.
"The hospital made the decision that all staff were not able to carry over unused vacation and everyone was given a payout," said Davis. "My compensation listed included this one-time payment. My increase last year was five per cent based on my performance.
"This June the board offered me a much smaller increase -- given economic times--but I turned it down."
Soychak vigorously defended the payout in an interview with the Enterprise- Bulletin on Tuesday. He said Davis hadn't taken a vacation last year because of her dedication to the hospital.
Ironically, though, Davis was on vacation while this story was being written. She responded by email last week to the Enterprise-Bulletin,but was unable to be contacted this week.
Soychak had little to add when he was reminded that many people in other lines of business and careers aren't offered such a payout.
Soychak also questioned the degree to which salaries had risen for top health-care executives. He said he had no knowledge of such a drastic increase over approximately the last decade.
He did agree, though, that public perception of what was going on often played against health care management professionals.
"How do you justify what you get paid?" he asked rhetorically. "These jobs are high-stress jobs. I know that informally, people always wonder what we do here in administration. The question of management is always a pressure point and things have gotten intense."
"If you ask me, people in Linda's position probably don't get paid enough. In a private company, people aren't able to contact the president or the CEO like you can here. They'd have to go through a public relations or communications department. That's a luxury we don't have here."
That sparked a long discussion of whether, in fact, a communications department would indeed be a "luxury" for the G & M and similar facilities, since spokespeople frequently lament that communication with the public is one of their highest priorities and most vexing issues.
"Communication is everything," he conceded as he pondered the point." I don't know where I would cut to make room for a communications person. That's the situation where we're at right now. We have tried and tried to avoid cutting front-line staff."
"I mean, I could balance the budget tomorrow if I took a strictly business-case approach to this," he added. "If we wanted to be ruthless, we could do it tomorrow. If we wanted to use a business model, things would be different. But we're not a business like any other. We're trying to do this in a conscientious manner that takes into account our employees and the public. We're trying to balance the budget without cutting services."
He insisted the G & M isn't top-heavy with management, despite claims to the contrary circulating in the community.
"We have some of the lowest average administration costs of any hospital," he said. "We have created efficiencies here and we did reduce management last fall. We can't cut any further."
He added that internally at the hospital, the layoffs haven't created much "upset.
"There's a lot of stress on the unions, though," he said, pointing to the wage freeze the province have planned to bring in for public service workers.
Since the positions are unionized, there is a five-month transition period before the cuts take effect. He's hoping that attrition and retirements might mean there will be no actual loss of personnel per se.
That entire article is nothing but meandering around the issue of the pay increases for management. There are many companies that have eliminated payouts for vacations due to the economic climate. That could have been done here and saved the jobs of the nurses.
Exactly, Cali! Why do you think I posted it?
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