If Interior Health decides to privatize the laundry service at Kootenay Lake Hospital, the hospital's laundry would be done somewhere in the Lower Mainland or in Alberta and 17 local jobs would be lost.
The health authority says its laundry equipment is outdated across the region and needs replacing at a cost of $10.5 million, and privatization would mean that the health authority would not need to incur that capital cost.
However, Nelson mayor Deb Kozak objects to the privatization of the service.
“That may not be the best business case for them,” she said. “I don't know where they would send the laundry except to the coast, to a private company, and I don't see how that would be a cost saving over the long term.
“I am guessing there is not a company in the interior that can do this.”
The health authority's Alan Davies told the Star in an interview that all of the companies on its list of qualified laundry service vendors are in fact based in the Lower Mainland and Alberta.
The privatization initiative also applies to laundry facilities in Vernon, Kelowna, Kamloops, and Penticton. Davies said the health authority has other impending capital costs that take priority over laundry equipment.
Davies said a formal “request for solutions” will be sent soon to all the companies on the approved laundry vendor list, with a response period of 60 days.
But Davies said the health authority is not actually sure privatization would be cheaper in the long run than purchasing new equipment. Asked what the comparative costs would be, he said they don't know, but the request for solutions process will help them find out.
“We don't know at this point,” said Davies, “because we have never gone to the marketplace and asked what it would cost for them to do what we do. Until we have that figure, we don't know what we are comparing to.”
Health Minister Terry Lake supports the proposal.
“They'd rather spend that [money] on hip replacements than on washing machines,” Lake said in question period in the legislature on Monday. “Doing laundry and washing bed sheets are not health care.”
Nelson-Creston MLA Michelle Mungall took issue with Lake's comments.
“It's not just Nelson. Penticton, Kamloops [the minister’s own riding], 100 Mile House, Williams Lake are all about to see family-supporting jobs shipped out of their communities.” she said.
“Taxpayers are going to foot the bill for these services regardless of who is doing them. So let's do them in our communities, and let's save on the shipping costs.”
“It's obviously an important service,” Lake responded, “but it is not front-line health care. Those jobs are going to be staying in British Columbia. We're looking for efficiencies.”
But according to the health authority news release announcing the initiative, the privatization plan is not about efficiency.
“The decision ... is not about efficiency of our operations,” it reads. “It is about avoiding future significant spending to replace aging equipment.”
Mungall says it's not about cost or efficiency but about “an ideology of privatization.”
In the meantime, Nelson city councillor Michael Dailly said Monday he wants council to petition the health authority to keep the laundry service in Nelson and to refer the matter as a resolution to the Union of BC Municipalities. That will be discussed and decided at council’s next regular meeting.
The collective agreement between the Hospital Employees Union and the health authority stipulates the employer must formally consult the union in the event of a privatization initiative. That has already been done in this case, says the union’s Mike Olds, but the collective agreement also says those discussions must be kept secret, so the results are not available to the public.
(CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that Terry Lake's home riding is Penticton.)