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QHC has more than its fair share of high earners

Hospital-Times-ChartLetters and Opinion

Ontario’s Public Sector Salary Disclosure List (Sunshine List) is out.

QHC, with 205 beds, has 61 staff earning more than $100,000 in 2012. To put this number in perspective, in 2004 there were seven on the list. This is a ninefold increase in nine years. Last week, Rick Conroy, of the Wellington Times, put together a graph to compare QHC with other hospitals. For comparison purposes, he stayed away from large city hospitals and “focused on hospitals that reflected the character of our community.”

He compared QHC with eight other hospitals, but for brevity, I will share five.
Napanee has 52 beds with five staff on the Sunshine List.
Northumberland (Cobourg) has 137 beds with 14 staff on the list. Peterborough has 495 beds with 36 staff making the Sunshine List.
Cornwall has 170 beds with 47 on the list.
Pembroke has 203 beds with 22 on the list.

Interestingly enough, QHC has almost the same number of beds (205) as Pembroke, but has 39 more staff members on the list. Pembroke with the same number of beds as QHC spent $2.8 million while QHC with 205 beds spent $7.4 million on 61 staff making over $100,000.
Peterborough, with 495 beds spent $4.7 million on staff making over $100,000.

Conroy went on to explain “these are poor measures”. For example Peterborough may have 100 folk earning $95,000 and they wouldn’t show up in the data. He goes on to say, “Nevertheless,QHC seems to have more than its fair share of high earners.”
He also showed a second graph that depicted  ‘The Ratio of Hospital Beds to Staff Earning More than $100,000’.
In his examples, Peterborough has 13.8 beds per staff earning $100,000, Napanee 10.2 beds, Cobourg has 9.8, Pembroke has 9.2 beds. Cornwall 3.6 and finally QHC has 3.4.

These numbers are startling if you see them in their graph form. Find them in the April 3rd  printed, or online version of the Times (formerly the Wellington Times) under Comment. These are comparisons that every QHC stakeholder needs to read (especially those living in Prince Edward County and Quinte West).

I, like Conroy, am not attempting to single out any QHC staffer on this list as these 61 are a very small percentage of Ontario’s Sunshine List. In fact I am familiar with some of the staff and know them to be very hard working individuals.

I had a closer look at QHC’s List and found that of the 61 staff 30 were administration. There were 20 registered nurses who for the most part are probably on the list because of overtime. The remaining 10 consisted of technologists, pharmacists and I believe two doctors.

I realize that QHC will bring out their “spin machine”and say that they are a four hospital corporation and that is why they have 61 staff on the list. Once again I checked the list and it appears there is one  $100,000 staffer  at PECMH, one at Bancroft, and perhaps two or three at Trenton.That leaves roughly 55 or over 90 per cent at Belleviile General. Keep in mind that 30 staff or 50 per cent are either senior administration, directors or managers of various services.

These figures are very troubling in that QHC stated that they had a $10 million deficit and went on to decimate both PECMH and Trenton of many of their remaining sevices. What is even more disturbing is that the non elected QHC board  approved these cuts even though many of the medical staff felt that there was not proper consultation. The Board has failed their stakeholders miserably (especially those in the County and Quinte West). Brian Smith, Chair of the QHC Board is looking for ideas to help with QHC’s financial problems. Mr. Smith, I highly recommend “The List” featured in the Times for your  reading.
-Fran Renoy
Picton

Filed Under: Letters and OpinionNews from Everywhere Else

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  1. Jan says:

    Well now we know there are far too many making far too much at QHC!! What are we going to do about it? It certainly is high time for something to be done!!

  2. wevil says:

    after seeing the comparisons that have been done there sure seems to be a lot of pigs at the trough.noone is worth the amount of money that the head of QHC gets.this is all at the expense of the smaller hospitals

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