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AHS aims to contract out rural hospital laundry services across Alberta

The Alberta Union of Provincial Employees says there is a push to privatize hospital laundry services across the rural part of the province.

AUPE says on Monday (Feb. 10) it received written notice from Alberta Health Services of the plan.

Some of the communities mentioned by AHS include Claresholm, High River, and Strathmore, however union Vice-President Susan Slade says larger centres including Lethbridge will be impacted as well.

“This has been a rumour for a while they (UCP government) were going to do this,” says Slade. “This was part of Jason Kenney’s campaign, but it still doesn’t make it right. Approximately, between Lethbridge and Medicine Hat, it is 60 full-time equivalencies”.

Slade says into total, the privatization of laundry will affect 275 workers in 54 Alberta communities.

She says when you add Oyen, Claresholm, Okotoks, and High River to the list, it would account for around 70 to 80 lost jobs in southern Alberta.

“When a public service is privatized, we know good jobs turn into low-wage gigs, and it costs more in the long run. We know this from the failure of laundry privatization in Saskatchewan and British Columbia,” adds Slade.

A news release this week from the union says in the letter notifying AUPE of the plan to contract-out laundry facilities, AHS says its primary rationale is related to the need to spend $35 million to $40 million to update infrastructure.

Slade says AUPE members have fought against laundry privatization before and will do so again.

Patrick Siedlecki
Patrick Siedlecki
Pat has been a mainstay in the CJOC News department from the time the station launched in 2007. He's been in the position of News Director since then and has been anchoring daily news casts as well as reporting and working behind the scenes. Community is important to him and keeping CJOC listeners and readers informed about what's happening across southern Alberta and beyond. Pat has been in radio broadcasting for the past 24 years, starting in Port Alberni on Vancouver Island in 1997 and then moving up island to Nanaimo for another few years before heading to Lethbridge in 2007. Pat grew up in the small Saskatchewan farming town of Foam Lake. After high school, he went to Western Academy Broadcasting College (WABC) in Saskatoon prior to moving to the island. Pat also spent several years broadcasting hockey in the BCHL as well as seven years as the radio voice of the Lethbridge Hurricanes in the WHL. Pat has been working at Cornerstone Funeral Home in Lethbridge as a Certified Life Celebrant and Funeral Assistant since 2016. News and sports have always been Pat's passion from the time he was a teenager and he's always been grateful to have had the opportunity to make that part of what's been a fun and long radio career!
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