Health Region laundry may close

The future of the Yorkton facility responsible for laundry services across the Sunrise Health Region is in doubt under a province-wide review of Saskatchewan's health care laundry facilities.

The Sunrise Regional Laundry supplies linen to about 20 Sunrise facilities from a central location in Yorkton. It employs 17 full-time, six part-time, and various casual employees.

It is also a target of one of the first items of business for 3sHealth, a new shared services organization established by the province's health regions.

3sHealth is working on a "provincial solution" to the laundry needs of the province's health regions, which might take the form of rebuilding the outdated current facilities, further consolidating them into one or more central facilities, or contracting their services out to private companies.

The push for reform was triggered by a "safety-related incident" at the Saskatoon Health Region's central laundry in November, said 3sHealth CEO Andrew Will in an interview on Monday.

"That really just highlighted the need for us to have a provincial plan in place to ensure that we have high-quality laundry services, that we can ensure high infection control standards, [and] that we can ensure employee safety in our laundry."

Saving money is another major motivator for the review, acknowledges Will, and that's what makes the Sunrise Regional Laundry's unionized employees worry. Consolidation or outsourcing of the laundry's services could mean the closure of the facility and the loss of some or all of the jobs it provides.

"This causes concern for us," said Pearl Blommaert, president of CUPE 4980, which represents the laundry workers. "We went through some significant job losses in 2010 when there were reductions in long-term care beds and such. This would be another significant hardship to our members, and I would say to the community as a whole. They shop here, they live here, and they do spend their money here."

Losing the Yorkton facility would also mean increased truck traffic and a potential reduction in the quality of service provided, argued Blommaert.

"We have enough problems getting the linen out to our rural [areas] in this region as it is with the linen being centralized in Yorkton."

Consultation with unions will be a part of the review process by 3sHealth, and Blommaert said CUPE is "very optimistic" that the public option will be found viable. But 3sHealth is considering all avenues.

The organization will request service proposals from third-party suppliers in June and make its decision by the fall. If the private contractor option is chosen, it is uncertain where the jobs currently based in Yorkton could land.

Since the closure of Saskatoon's laundry facility last year, services formerly handled there have been temporarily divided between a publicly owned laundry in Prince Albert and a private company in Calgary.

Will would not rule out the possibility that more laundry services could be moved out of province.

"My hope is that we can find a solution within the province," said the 3sHealth CEO. "I don't think that's really a focus of the review."

The organization's primary concern, insisted Will, is improving service and reducing expenses for the health regions.

"If we can lower our costs so we can reinvest into patient care, that is good for patients."