Ontario PCs claim that job cuts are hydro-driven is 'misleading', North Bay hospital says

The Ontario Progressive Conservatives say hospitals across the province are cutting staff, and skyrocketing hydro bills are to blame.

But North Bay and Sault Ste. Marie's hospitals deny a direct link between cutbacks andhydro rates.

In an email to CBC News, North Bay hospital spokesperson Linsday Smylie Smith said Fedeli's claim doesn't tell the whole story.

"Rising hydro costs are only one of the financial pressures our CEO Paul Heinrich has identified the others include arbitrated wage increases worth $2 million and a rate increase from our staff health benefits provider, specifically long-term disability insurance, in the amount of $1.7 million," Smith said.

"It would be misleading to directly attribute the announcement of the elimination of the jobs to only one of these factors and not all as a whole."

Hospital hasn't released information on job cuts, yet

Smith confirmed that the hospital will be cutting between 30-40 jobs, but did not specify which positions would be eliminated.

In a newsrelease issued Tuesday, Nipissing MPP Vic Fedeli said the North Bay Regional Health Centre is being forced to cut40 positions in the face of a $200,000 increase to its annual hydro bill.

Fedeli also said that the Timmins and District Hospital is expecting to pay $1.2 million on hydro this year, up from $825,000 five years ago, and the Sault Area Hospital's 35 job cuts in 2015 were forced by a hydro increase of $800,000 over a four-year period.

In a written statement, Rose Calibani of the Sault Area Hospital said that even though their facility was hit with a steep hydro bill increase rising $900,000 over the last five years they have "not made decisions directly tied to the increase in electricity rates."

She added that "there are no planned layoffs of front line staff at Sault Area Hospital," and they continue to advocate for a "provincial approach to address the cost pressures facing health care in Ontario."

Fedeli says there are numerous examples of hospitals struggling to pay soaring hydro rates.

"Our hospitals are being forced to do more with less," said Fedeli in a release Tuesday. "Hospitals are going to be faced with no option but to cut staff as electricity rates continue to soar. These cuts will be Premier Kathleen Wynne'slegacy."