THE CANADIAN PRESS

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VICTORIA, B.C. - Saving time seems more important than worker safety to a private contractor responsible for cleaning two Vancouver Island hospitals, says a recent report by WorkSafeBC.

Two separate reports by the provincial job safety organization found Compass Group Canada had violated health and safety standards at two Victoria hospitals by failing to provide "overtasked" staff with training, information and protective equipment.

One of the WorkSafeBC reports released by the Hospital Employees' Union on Thursday said Compass Group Canada employees at Victoria General Hospital were using corrosive disinfectant cleaner from four to eight hours a day, five days a week.

"The workers interviewed reported having to use a breathing puffer (prescribed by physicians) as a result of the adverse health effect which they contribute to the cleaning products they are using," said the report written in May.

"For the most part incidents involving chemical cleaning products exposures go unreported."

WorkSafeBC said staff reassigned to new jobs don't receive specific safety-related instructions and that one worker said a supervisor wasn't available to provide direction.

And another report issued last month on violations at Royal Jubilee Hospital suggested that saving time seemed more important than ensuring safety for workers.

The report said workers were not aware of the hazardous components of a concentrated form of a cleaning disinfectant, which the employer said was a much safer alternative.

"Depending on the site, 25 to 60 per cent of the workers using this product are reporting adverse respiratory ailments and are puzzled to the reason why," the report said.

WorkSafeBC also said incident investigation reports have not been submitted to the agency as required.

Cindy Harris, a Compass Group spokeswoman, said it's not uncommon for large employers like Compass to receive such reprimands from WorkSafeBC.

"We work very closely with this agency to ensure that we comply with all their requirements," she stressed.

When asked if the size of the company excuses such violations, Harris said she was not authorized to answer questions. She also declined comment when asked if Compass plans to hire more staff and if the company has a complaint system in place for its employees.

Harris said the company is complying with the orders and is in the process of setting up additional chemical and accident investigation training sessions.

Hospital Employees' Union spokeswoman Olive Dempsey said it's up to the Vancouver Island Health Authority to ensure the housekeeping contractor takes health and training needs seriously because unclean hospitals also put patient safety at risk.

"When workers don't have time to be safe themselves they also don't have time to provide the services that keep our hospitals safe," she said.

"We are working with Compass but the reality is that it's absolutely their responsibility that they are not violating health and safety regulations and that they're providing both the training and the time that workers need to be safe."

In 2002, the government contracted out cleaning and food services for hospitals in the Lower Mainland, the Sunshine Coast and the southern part of Vancouver Island.

Concerns about unclean facilities have been raised several times since then.

Earlier this year, WorkSafeBC said health and safety violations had occurred at Cowichan District and Nanaimo Regional General hospitals.

The Nanaimo facility was the site of a C. difficile outbreak that began last July was declared over by May, according to the Vancouver Island Health Authority. The bacterium is the most common cause of infectious diarrhea in hospitalized patients in industrial countries.

According to an August 2008 report by the B.C. Centre for Disease Control, there were 64 confirmed cases of C. difficile and eight people died. The agency was investigating to determine what role the bacterium played in the deaths.

Last month, after a report on infection control by its own medical health officer, the health authority said it will be creating new procedures to improve its response to infections.