FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
The Alberta Union of Provincial Employees (AUPE) has learned that healthcare workers employed by Covenant Health are significantly more likely to catch COVID at work than other healthcare workers.
AUPE, United Nurses of Alberta (UNA), and the Health Sciences Association of Alberta (HSAA), have signed a joint letter demanding that the employer investigate this growing problem and take immediate action to correct it.
Out of 315 Covenant Health employees who have tested positive for COVID-19, no less than 163 of those workers—or 52 per cent—caught the virus on the job. About 8 percent of COVID-positive workers at Alberta Health Services and Alberta Precision Laboratories got infected at work.
“Something is clearly wrong at Covenant Health,” AUPE Vice-President Bonnie Gostola says. “When one employer’s rate of workplace infection is orders of magnitude higher than others, it’s because there is a failure to keep workers safe.”
The union signatories to the letter, all of which represent Alberta healthcare workers, are demanding three immediate actions:
1) Engage a health and safety firm with appropriate expertise to conduct an investigation of occupational exposures at Covenant facilities
2) Consult exposed workers, other front-line staff and Joint Workplace Health and Safety Committee members for recommendations to prevent workplace exposures
3) Produce a report with comprehensive recommendations and share it with health and safety committee members
“When we see numbers like the ones at Covenant Health, we need to act quickly,” Gostola says. “We need to identify why so many workers are getting sick, and how to stop that spread. We need to start that process immediately. Dr. Hinshaw described case numbers in Alberta as being like a snowball,” Gostola says. “At Covenant Health, we want to stop that snowball before it becomes an avalanche.
“When we put workers in danger, we’re also putting patients in danger,” Gostola says. “We hope that Covenant Health will begin moving on this issue immediately. Lives are on the line.”
—Bonnie Gostola is available for comment. For more information, contact Jon Milton, Communications Officer, j.milton@aupe.org