At a press conference at Queen's Park, where a long list of grievances and demands were laid out, union leaders warned that unless the hospital backs down on plans to slash jobs, they will seek a court injunction to stop cutbacks.
"People are very upset, they're worried, the community is worried," said Connie Ferrara, past-president of Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) Local 311 and a Rouge Valley pharmacy technician.
OPSEU president Warren Thomas said he wants the Province to replace Rouge Valley President Rik Ganderton with a supervisor to run the hospital and an auditor to go through its books.
"The only way to get to the truth is to get a supervisor and an auditor to go in. Numbers don't lie," he said.
Mr. Thomas accused hospital officials and the Central East Local Health Integration Network, a non-elected provincial body that overseas health planning from Scarborough east to Peterborough, of failing to properly consult the community on the cutbacks.
"They are playing with people's lives here. Every time these LHINs try to do anything, it's cloaked in secrecy," he said, adding community consultation is now only taking place after the cutbacks have been announced.
The plan to close the in-patient mental health unit and move the 20 beds from the Ajax site to Centenary has provoked protests from the community, including the picketing of offices of government MPPs Joe Dickson (Ajax-Pickering) and Wayne Arthurs (Pickering-Scarborough East).
While Mr. Thomas is most concerned with mental health cutbacks, he also plans to forge a coalition with the Ontario Nurses Association to fight overall cuts proposed for Scarborough's Centenary site and the Ajax-Pickering location.
Rouge Valley plans to cut 220 positions over more than three years, including more than 70 nurses, in order to eliminate its $40 million operating debt and $38 million capital debt.
Moving the mental health beds from Ajax to Centenary is a blow to patients in west Durham Region, Mr. Thomas said. The move also raises jurisdictional questions because Durham Regional police will be transporting patients to Scarborough, he said.
Meanwhile, Centenary will lose some of its 295 adult beds - 36 between surgery, cardiology and complex continuing care alone - but will gain a medical psychiatry unit by next year, giving the Neilson Road campus a new total of 274 beds.
Rouge Valley spokesman David Brazeau said the hospital will not comment on the union's threat of an injunction or demands for a supervisor and auditor.
Health minister George Smitherman has ruled out a bailout for the hospital, saying it's been poorly run historically and has repeatedly exceeded its budget despite provincial handouts.
A peer review report released in December slammed Rouge Valley for years of overspending and lax management. Annual bailouts from Queen's Park came to a stop last summer when the province refused to give Rouge Valley a further $12 million.
The Province's refusal came just months after former president Hume Martin's abrupt departure in December 2006. Mr. Ganderton was appointed interim president a month later, a position that was made permanent last September.
Although the three-member peer review team, headed by Markham Stouffville Hospital President Janet Beed, delivered a hard-hitting report on Rouge Valley's operations, Mr. Thomas said a supervisor and auditor are needed to get to the bottom of the hospital's situation.
