Health-care workers are encountering soiled sheets and items such as used needles in laundry washed by private provider K-Bro, according to the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees (AUPE).
At a news conference Friday, union officials shared numerous images of stained laundry and items trapped in sheets, including diapers.
“Handing our health-care laundry services to K-Bro has been an absolute disaster,” said AUPE vice-president Curtis Jackson.
Former premier Jason Kenney announced the government would soon privatize laundry services for health-care centres in 2020 to save money.
K-Bro Linen Systems was awarded the sole contract a year later.
“We’ve discovered that the contract with K-Bro is now costing the province significantly more than in-house laundry services had,” said Jackson.
“Hospitals have even resorted to purchasing washers and dryers to wash valuable items that K-Bro allegedly lost, such as lift assist straps. Items like these straps cost over $1,000 to replace.”
Angela Smyth, a longtime licensed practical nurse (LPN) who works at the Canmore General Hospital, said it is hard to provide quality care to patients without quality services.
At the news conference, she recalled finding a laundered sheet with feces on it and feeling pressured to use the others that had been in the same load to save the cost of re-washing them all.
“These are folded sheets that come from K-Bro. Our face cloths and towels that we used to have were nice and soft. They’re now like fine sandpaper,” she said.
AUPE is calling for the province to bring laundry services back into the public domain.
“Doing so would create hundreds of jobs in health-care services, as well as create rural jobs that are desperately needed,” Jackson said.
CTV News Edmonton has reached out to both the province and K-Bro Linen Systems for comment and is awaiting a response.
