Without us, they would only be guessing …
Many in the general public believe hospitals can function with just doctors and nurses. It comes as a shock many that there are actually a hospital needs more than 150 different kinds of health care professionals.In diagnostics and lab services, a range of technologists, technicians and assistants understand and use technologies like ultrasounds, x-ray, CT and MRI scans to provide accurate and objective tests and evaluations. Really, doctors would only be guessing without us.Without allied health professionals — specialists in physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech language therapy, social workers, physician assistants, mental health, and the entire pharmacy discipline — who would assess, optimize, treat, evaluate and link patients and families to a whole host of supports and resources after a serious medical crisis?Without registered respiratory therapists, anesthesia assistants and perfusionists who assist with breathing supports and complex components of the surgical journey, who would ensure you are breathing safely?Visibility matters
Visibility matters because so many of us “work behind the scenes.”When you come to the hospital, it’s like looking and encountering the tip of an iceberg. It’s hard to imagine how extensive, broad and diverse the hospital professionals’ skills, education, expertise are.All health care professionals are interconnected in the health care settings. All heath care professionals are integrated in the health care system as a team. Remember – you need the rest of us because we are part of the health care team!!
Video clips
Sara Labelle, Executive Chair of OPSEU/SEFPO Hospital Professionals Division – “They need to stop putting money into private clinics that only poach the staff that we need from our hospitals…every single clinic that takes money out of the public purse means we have less money to deal with issues at our hospitals”.- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBxrtWDNlZAa0
- https://www.youtube.com/shorts/yICUpRSo4j4
- https://www.youtube.com/shorts/YsKeQCXm-Hk.
JP Hornick, President of OPSEU/SEFPO – “Health Professionals are the unsung heroes of the pandemic, but also the hospitals themselves. You’re there on behalf of patients from diagnosis to discharge; you provide the vital daily services that keep our hospitals running.”
Laurie Nancekivell, First Vice President/Treasurer of OPSEU/SEFPO – “You are invaluable to the health care system, and this government and those that are supposed to be at the table with you need to hear loud and strong that you know what it takes to have good health care in our hospitals.”
Laura Walton, President of the Ontario Federation of Labour – “You know how you tariff proof Ontario? You invest in our public services, like our health care workers.”
Erin Aris, President of the Ontario Nurses Association – “Hospital CEOs and the Ford government are complicit with the OHA in underfunding our publicly funded and publicly delivered hospitals”.
Natalie Mehra, Executive Director of the Ontario Health Coalition – “You can run a hospital for months without the CEO and you would never notice, but you take away the health professionals and no patient would live.”
Tyler Downey, President of SEIU – “Anything worth having is worth fighting for, it’s worth fighting for a living wage in this economy, it’s worth fighting for communities to have the services they need, it’s worth fighting for safe work places, but the fight can’t exist without you, without the frontline workers”.
Michael Hurley, president of CUPE/OCHU – “The people upstairs have exploited us forever, and they believe that despite the heroism that people displayed during the pandemic, despite keeping this hospital system together with the fewest staff of any province in the country, that they can continue to exploit us and we are here today to say we stand with you and we have their number”.
Fred Hahn, President of CUPE Ontario – “People of Ontario value our public health care system, and we will stand with you to defend it”