{"id":624538,"date":"2026-04-24T01:38:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T01:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/624538\/"},"modified":"2026-04-24T01:38:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T01:38:10","slug":"health-care-workers-want-more-support-at-lakeridge-health-in-oshawa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/624538\/","title":{"rendered":"Health care workers want more support at Lakeridge Health in Oshawa"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Health care workers at Lakeridge Health in Oshawa are rallying against what they\u2019re calling intensifying workloads and worsening patient care.<\/p>\n

Employees represented by CUPE 6364 protested outside the hospital today, they say the health centre is trying to reduce costs amid provincial funding restraints which are causing job losses even though demand for care is on the rise.<\/p>\n

Pam Parks is a registered practical nurse at Lakeridge Health and the president of CUPE local 6364. She says the lack of funding is affecting patient care. She told Durham Radio News Lakeridge Health eliminated three full-time dietary staff, who deliver trays to patient rooms.<\/p>\n

This means food for patients is being delivered to the floors and it\u2019s become the nurses responsibility to get the food and deliver it.<\/p>\n

\u201cStaff are fed up with the chaotic conditions at Lakeridge,\u201d said Parks. \u201d We have stretchers full of patients in the hallways because our hospital is running over capacity.\u201d<\/p>\n

She claims workers are being pressured into discharging their patients quickly \u2013 even when they need more hands-on care and time to recover.<\/p>\n

Parks claims the hospital is also not replacing sick calls, so workers are feeling overwhelmed and working short. She says it\u2019s making them feel like they\u2019re not doing their due diligence because they\u2019re stretched so thin.<\/p>\n

Parks is asking the community to be patient when they or a loved one is being cared for.<\/p>\n

CUPE\u2019s Ontario Council of Hospital Unions (OCHU) President Michael Hurley says emergency room patients are waiting about 20 hours on average, while surgical wait-times have increased by 100 per cent since 2019.<\/p>\n

He says some workers are leaving the profession because they feel they\u2019re not able to provide a high-quality of care patients deserve because they\u2019re stretched so thin.<\/p>\n

He believes the funding cut will lead to more job losses and hospital bed closures when the system is already at a breaking point.<\/p>\n

OCHU-CUPE is calling for a $3.2-billion increase in hospital funding to close the gap between Ontario and the rest of Canada.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re also asking for a six per cent annual increase to keep pace with population growth and ageing.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

If you have found a spelling error, please, notify us by selecting that text and pressing Ctrl+Enter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Health care workers at Lakeridge Health in Oshawa are rallying against what they\u2019re calling intensifying workloads and worsening…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":624539,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[49,48,84,392],"class_list":["post-624538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-health","tag-healthcare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=624538"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624538\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/624539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=624538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=624538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=624538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}