People accessing public health care in the Lower Mainland and throughout B.C. are benefiting from stable, consistent and supportive patient care as 142 workers returned to Provincial Health Services Authority (PHSA) and Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH) employees on March 31, 2023.

Health authorities and Providence Health Care (PHC) have brought more than 4,600 workers back into the public system. This comes after almost 20 years of these workers having their services contracted to private companies.

“Building a strong health-care system begins with a strong health-care workforce,” said Adrian Dix, Minister of Health. “By repatriating workers back into the public system and supporting them with better wages, pension and benefits and a dedicated team-based work environment, we are delivering on our commitment to health-care workers and improving care for patients now and into the future.”

A total of 142 staff were repatriated as VCH and PHSA employees.

On April 1, 2023, a total of 13 environmental services call centre staff are now VCH employees. These staff members receive cleaning requests from staff in the VCH and PHC regions and dispatch environmental services to clean the areas.

At B.C. Children’s and Women’s Hospital, 129 environmental services staff were repatriated as PHSA employees on March 31, 2023.

“Staff who feel secure and supported feel valued and appreciated as they should be, and they provide best care for their patients,” said Harwinder Sandhu, Parliamentary Secretary for Seniors’ Services and Long-Term Care. “Our health-care workers work so hard and provide exceptional care to their patients. I am so proud that our government is bringing them back to the public system with the good, secure jobs with benefits they deserve, and this is a great reason to celebrate. Welcome back, we see you, we are proud of you, and we are here to help you!”

To address inequality and enhance working conditions for employees in health-care facilities, government is ensuring that workers have the benefits, pension and wages that they deserve to be able to focus on helping patients. Evidence has shown that employees who feel secure and safe in their jobs provide higher-quality care for people, and in turn, employers can attract and retain staff at a higher and more consistent level.

“I am very happy these 142 health-services workers are returning to the public health system at the Vancouver Coastal Health and Providence Health Care,” said George Heyman, MLA Vancouver-Fairview. “Bringing contracted services back to the public system restores good-quality, stable jobs for health-care workers and ensures consistent, high-quality care for people in our community. Health-care workers deserve to know that they have a stable, good-paying job so they can focus on providing high-quality patient care at work. This is another measure that strengthens our health system.”

Following the initial announcement on Aug. 30, 2021, health authorities and PHC served notice under the terms of 21 commercial service contracts and began a phased approach to repatriate housekeeping and food-service contracts, beginning with Island Health.

Work to bring health-care service workers back into the public system began in 2019 when the Province brought Bill 47 (Health Sector Statutes Repeal Act) into force. Bill 47 repealed the Health and Social Services Delivery Improvement Act (Bill 29) and the Health Sector Partnerships Agreement Act (Bill 94), which had facilitated contracting out in the health sector and caused significant labour impacts.

In 2020, the process started with the North Island Hospitals, which spearheaded the move independently of Bill 47 to bring 150 contracted-out workers in house at the Campbell River and Comox Valley hospitals.

Quotes:

Susan Wannamaker, executive vice-president, clinical service delivery, Provincial Health Services Authority –

“While housekeeping and food services staff have always been a part of our extended family, they’re an integral part of the health-care system, so it’s meaningful that they are now recognized as part of our health-care team. Working alongside clinical staff, they play an important role in supporting the needs of our patients and families.”

Vivian Eliopoulos, president and CEO, Vancouver Coastal Health –

“We are very pleased to welcome back our environmental services call centre staff to Vancouver Coastal Health. We greatly appreciate their contributions and truly value their dedication to providing for the needs of patients, clients and residents across our acute and community sites.”

Meena Brisard, secretary-business manager, Hospital Employees’ Union –

“All health-care support workers are critical to patient care and safety, and deserve to be reunited with the health-care team. By bringing these workers back in house, the provincial government is reversing nearly two decades of privatization that fragmented and weakened our public health-care system, and disproportionately affected women and racialized health-care workers.”

Learn More:

To learn about Bill 47, visit: https://archive.news.gov.bc.ca/releases/news_releases_2017-2021/2018HLTH0102-002147.htm