NCRHA moves to reform patient escort, attendant services

The North Cen­tral Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (NCRHA) says it is mov­ing to re­form its pa­tient es­cort and hos­pi­tal at­ten­dant ser­vices fol­low­ing an in­ter­nal re­view that iden­ti­fied se­ri­ous con­cerns over re­cruit­ment, at­ten­dance, dis­ci­pline and man­age­ment over­sight.

The au­thor­i­ty said the re­view found re­ports and al­le­ga­tions of bul­ly­ing, in­tim­i­da­tion, ex­tor­tion, threats and al­leged gang af­fil­i­a­tion among some em­ploy­ees.

Oth­er con­cerns in­clud­ed ab­sen­teeism re­port­ed­ly rang­ing be­tween 30 and 50 per cent dai­ly, per­sis­tent late-com­ing, em­ploy­ees leav­ing be­fore the end of shifts, dis­obe­di­ence of le­git­i­mate in­struc­tions and, in some cas­es, re­fusal to trans­port pa­tients.