EDITOR'S NOTE: This story has been edited from a previous version to clarify information provided concerning a Hero Bonus for employees.
Irate patients, a lack of support, and a denied request for leave pushed one LifeLabs employee to quit a job she once loved.
“The worst day for me personally was, one day, I was on the door. There was a line up around the building,” said Silvia Wachter, a former employee at LifeLabs in Orillia. “I was dealing with walk-in patients and ones with appointments. A man drove up in his car literally right to where I was standing and started yelling at me out the window.”
“I told him I was dealing with patients and to please park his car and line up. He was dropping off a urine sample. He took the urine sample and said, ‘I’m not doing it,’ and threw it at me and then drove off,” said Wachter.
According to OPSEU 389, the union that represents LifeLabs employees in Simcoe County, Wachter’s story is one of many their members shared with them of abuse from clients, mismanagement and frustration that has led to staffing shortages, long lines and outright closures of many area locations through the pandemic.
Wachter worked at LifeLabs as a part-time patient service technician at their Orillia O’Brien Street location.
“We had another person who came in for a test. It was a test that had to be sent to a hospital and couldn’t be done on that particular day. He started punching the windows,” she said, noting he didn’t break the window.
“People have called us incompetent, they have called us every name in the book they could possibly think of,” she said.
After seven and a half years of employment and a denied leave-of-absence request, Wachter said she made the tough decision last month to quit after more than a year of enduring verbal abuse from patients and mental-health burnout.
“Things started going sideways somewhat before the pandemic,” said Wachter. “Things became more business-like. Turnover started.”
At the start of the pandemic, Wachter said there was a significant shift in management style at all local LifeLabs locations. Full-time employees were put on leave, and managers started working remotely off-site. She said this left locations severely short-staffed and without in-person management support.
“It started feeling like they didn’t have our backs anymore. There was no one to talk to when a patient got irate. They didn’t check in with us to see how we were doing,” she said.
Wachter said some locations would close and the remaining staff all moved to singular locations, which is when extensive lineups started. For example, in Orillia, the company closed its O'Brien Street location and introduced new protocols at the Memorial Avenue site, which led to long lineups and frustration for both employees and clients.
As the pandemic went on, there were many instances of irate patients, Wachter explained.
“Line-ups would run around the buildings. We screened people at the door. People would get upset because it was cold and they would stand out there for an hour or more before they even got to the door,” she said. “So then, on top of being short-staffed and overworked, we started having to deal with people who were really mad every minute of the day.”
Wachter said she didn’t see a supervisor or manager in person for months.
In the middle of the pandemic, Wachter said LifeLabs came out with a “Hero Bonus,” in which staff were given a temporary boost in pay.
Wachter said the problem was, only full-time employees were eligible for the full amount; full-time employees, for the most part, had been laid off up until that point. The part-time and casual workers who had worked throughout the pandemic’s hardest days were only eligible for the bonus on a sliding scale which worked out to roughly half as much.
“That was a big kick in the face for a lot of people. It didn’t sit well,” said Wachter.
Wachter said over time, the situation began to take a toll on her own mental health. She noted she was having difficulty sleeping and eating, and started suffering from panic attacks.
She said she reached out to her manager to request an unpaid leave of absence, however her request was denied. She made the decision to quit.
“I didn’t have it in me to fight another battle,” she said. “I was crying all the time. My doctor said I could try medication... to basically numb myself down so I could deal with what was happening at work... I felt completely unappreciated.”
Wachter tried to hold back tears when she talked about the vocation she once loved.
“When I first started doing this job, I loved it. I felt like I was making a difference,” she said. “The satisfaction I used to get from this job – it’s gone.”
Emily Smith worked at the LifeLabs Wasaga Beach location, starting in 2020. She is trained as a personal support worker and is also qualified to draw blood. She quit in May.
“It was a very stressful work environment. There was no management at the site. It was hard coming in... with no structure on how to do your job,” said Smith.
“A lot of patients would get really angry about the wait. Sometimes there was a wait of two to three hours,” she said.
Smith recounted an incident she had with a patient who refused to wear a mask.
“I was still newer at the time, so I needed to ask (coworkers) about the protocol for people coming in without a mask. When I asked him to wait outside and said I would be right back, he started getting very angry, raising his voice and coming at me,” said Smith. “There were a lot of patients who would make negative comments about the wait and how it was being run.”
Smith has managed to land on her feet and is now working as a health support worker at a retirement home.
“I’m enjoying my job now,” said Smith. “I would love to still be drawing blood because that is what I went to school for, but I wasn’t happy there. I needed a change and I needed out of Wasaga Beach.”
OPSEU 389 and LifeLabs respond
Renée Aiken Kearsley, president of OPSEU 389 - the union that represents about 105 LifeLabs employees in Simcoe County - said the experiences described by these two employeers are not unique.
“Since the pandemic, we are at a short-staffing crisis,” said Kearsley. “A year ago, we were health-care heroes. Now, we’re supposed to just get on with it.”
Kearsley said OPSEU has worked with LifeLabs to address short-staffing as it evolved into a health and safety issue. She estimates about 10 per cent of the total LifeLabs workforce across the county have outright quit due to a variety of issues.
“There is no end in sight. We work short-staffed, and then the people who are working burn out. It’s a vicious cycle,” she said. “The employer really hasn’t done much to support us. The help is not there.”
Kearsley said employees are verbally and, in some cases, physically abused by patients every day. She said requests were put in to LifeLabs by the union to hire security, but that request was denied.
“(We’re being) yelled at, sworn at, pushed, assaulted, told we are useless,” said Kearsley. “At our location in Wasaga Beach, the door was damaged because a member was trying to close it and a patient fought so hard that the handle came off the door.”
“Staff are skipping their lunches, their breaks and are sacrificing their health. It’s absolute madness,” she said.
Kearsley said the union has tried to speak with LifeLabs management about the staffing situation multiple times. She estimates about 20 grievances have been filed by the union representing Simcoe County employees over the past few months.
“The union has been fighting them for a long time. We have filed grievances and will continue to file grievances until they’re held accountable. It’s appalling what’s happening to health care workers,” she said.
Kearsley also notes a shift in how LifeLabs is asking employees to deal with patients. She said LifeLabs has asked staff to start referring to patients as customers, and is encouraging “upselling” of testing that may not be covered by OHIP.
“Their solution for basically everything is to upsell. This is what they’re trying to do now. As health-care workers, it disgusts us that they want to call our patients customers because that’s not how we look at them,” said Kearsley.
LifeLabs declined an interview request from Village Media, and instead sent a statement.
“Frontline health-care organizations across the province including in the community lab setting have been experiencing staffing challenges throughout the past several months,” said Imran Amin, spokesperson for LifeLabs, in an email to Village Media.
“This has been caused by an acute shortage of lab workers, exacerbated by the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic that has forced many staff to reduce their hours. As such, we have experienced some temporary closures of locations, including in Simcoe County,” he wrote.
“We do what we can to avoid these closures such as opening for limited hours during the day. However, when we cannot accommodate this, we are forced to redeploy our staff to nearby LifeLabs locations.”
Amin concluded the email statement noting LifeLabs is hiring for a number of lab roles across the county, encouraging anyone interested to apply through their website.
“We have long-standing relationships with our union partners and continue to work through any concerns or inquiries with local union representation through existing relationships and forums,” he said. “We are incredibly proud of the important role that our dedicated front-line health care workers have played to support communities.”
