Judas H. Priest, I’m Astonished!
Earlier Wednesday, Mr. Clement said the government will cover the cost of doubling pay for health-care workers on SARS duty at four Toronto hospitals.
Mr. Clement said the government supports the move to increase compensation for front-line workers but did not endorse requests from other health workers in hospitals dealing with SARS that they get more money as well.
Mr. Clement said the four hospitals, which have formed an alliance to combat the SARS outbreak, are a “special case.”
“That has to be recognized as such and that has to be remunerated as such.”
Nurses combating SARS have been particularly unhappy that agency temps brought in to help in the fight are being paid at a premium.
The new hospital deal would pay nurses at the top end of the salary scale about $66 an hour, roughly what the temporary nurses are being paid.
X-ray technicians and other staff who work with SARS patients or in SARS screening are also getting the premium.From the Globe and Mail.
Intermixed with this is the usual union whining. Nurses at other hospitals want the pay increase. Everyone’s bitching about more safety gear like you’d know how to use it if you had it, eh?. Look here for how well these folks used the correct equipment they had. Health officials announced that the five cases being investigated for SARS at Rouge Valley Health System’s Centenary site in east Toronto have been cleared of having the disease; the quarantine period is over for staff and students at Father Michael McGivney Catholic Academy in Markham, with no new cases reported; the two cases being investigated at West Parry Sound Health Centre and a nurse in isolation in Ottawa have also been cleared.
“These latest results confirm the fact that there has been no community exposure,” Colin D’Cunha, Ontario’s Commissioner of Public Health said in a news release. Now that’s good news. Especially for the high school kids.
