A rally in front of Nipissing MPP Vic Fedeli’s downtown North Bay, Ont. office Monday morning called on the province to reverse job cuts coming to the North Bay Regional Health Centre. About 50 people wearing paper cutout yellow ties that Fedeli is known to wear rallied outside of his office. Members of CUPE (Canadian Union of Public Employees), the union representing 1,000 hospital workers in North Bay, left a lump of coal at Fedeli’s door, calling him the Grinch that stole health care in North Bay. The union blames 40 job cuts coming in mid-March squarely on the Ford government. Mondays rally was the latest event protesting those cuts. “We’re going to rev up the campaign in this community to press him as a senior minister in the Ford government to come through with adequate funding because the community depends on this hospital,” said Michael Hurley, president of the Ontario Council of Hospital Unions. Job cuts Jobs affected include 13 nursing positions, a handful of registered practical nurses, PSWs, clerical staff, a pharmacy technician and a patient food service worker. It’s one of several measures the hospital is taking to find $5.6 million in savings. “Cuts like this are going to hurt the people who live in their community, their neighbours, the most vulnerable people among us,” said Noah Miles, who attended the protest. “I’ve had friends who really needed health care urgently and saw the wait times and decided not to get health care.” Last Thursday, Fedeli announced $15 million for hospital operations and alternate levels of care beds. The hospital said the job cuts will still go ahead, but said the funds it will allow hospital staff to support alternate level of care patients and, ultimately, improve patient flow. But the union insists that the money was already built into the hospital’s budget. ‘Smoke and mirrors’ “We’re not going to buy into the smoke and mirrors,” said Mike Turgeon, CUPE Local 139 president. “We think the strategy Mr. Fedeli is trying to employ here is to show his constituents that he’s trying to do something about health care, when really he’s not.” The province and hospital have said the cuts won’t impact patient care. In a statement, Fedeli said the province “continues to make historic investments in the North Bay Regional Health Centre (NBRHC) to ensure our community has access to high-quality health-care services.” “Since 2020, we have increased annual funding for the NBRHC by $49.3 million -- a nearly 20 per cent increase -- as part of our government’s $91 billion investment in health care across the province,” the statement said. But people at Monday’s rally said long wait times area reality at the hospital. Noella Shank said her daughter was recently rushed to the hospital after a gate fell on her head. “She waited in emerg for five hours before she was seen or even had a CT scan done,” Shank said. “I couldn’t believe it.” CUPE data estimates the hospital needs to add 120 workers to keep up with growing patient volumes. The union said it fears cuts to the hospital will become an incentive to privatize health care. North Bay’s hospital serves as a catchment area of more than 180,000 people in northeastern Ontario, including the Nipissing District and the surrounding region.
