“I loved going to work when I first started. Now I dread it:” new study on Ontario’s hospital workers’ deteriorating morale to be released on Wednesday in Ottawa

OTTAWA, Ontario--(BUSINESS WIRE)--A new peer-reviewed study warns that Ontario’s predominantly female hospital workers are in deep turmoil as they labour through an intensifying staffing crisis that is harming their well-being and compromising patient care. The full results of the study will be announced at a media conference in Ottawa on Wednesday morning.

Running on Empty, published in New Solutions: A Journal of Environmental and Occupational Health Policy, is co-authored by Dr. Margaret Keith and Dr. Jim Brophy, who since 2017 have spearheaded three studies on working conditions in Ontario’s health care sector. Dr. Craig Slatin, a U.S. health researcher, was a co-investigator.

Dr. Brophy will present the findings at the news conference along with co-author Michael Hurley, the president of CUPE’s Ontario Council of Hospital Unions (OCHU-CUPE). The study is based on 26 in-depth interviews with CUPE hospital workers including nurses, personal support workers, and clerical staff. The qualitative study was complemented by a poll surveying 775 hospital workers, including those working in the Ottawa Valley.

Who: Dr. James Brophy, researcher affiliated with the University of Windsor, and Michael Hurley, president of OCHU-CUPE, the hospital division of the Canadian Union of Public Employees.

What: Media conference to release findings of new study about Ontario’s hospital workers

Where: CUPE office Room 104, 1378 Triole Street, Ottawa

When: 10:00 a.m. on Wednesday, August 14

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