DearSummer
May 31st, 2012, 10:22 AM
Money-losing Tim Hortons in St. John’s hospital a ‘cautionary tale’: critics
http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/05/30/money-losing-tim-hortons-in-st-johns-hospital-a-cautionary-tale-critics/
When the Tim Hortons at Newfoundland’s Health Sciences Centre opened in 1995, the hospital’s administrator predicted the shop would turn an annual profit of up to $300,000 and pay for seven nurses — or 11 support staff, or maybe even pay for the increase in chemotherapy drugs for cancer patients.
Instead, the coffee shop at the St. John’s hospital lost about $260,000 last year, offering what critics say is a cautionary tale of what can happen when the public sector gets involved in things better done by private enterprise.
“Let me tell you why [the hospital franchise loses money],” Vickie Kaminski, the authority’s president and CEO, told reporters on Tuesday. “We charge you a buck-ninety-four for that large coffee, but we insist that the staff who are pouring the coffee are Eastern Health staff, and they get paid $28 an hour. No Tim Hortons pays that.”
“Somehow it became public employees running a doughnut shop,” said Lloyd Matthews, who was Newfoundland’s health minister when the location opened at the Health Sciences Centre in 1995. “It brings us all home to the issue of waste in health care …. [It] makes us all a little interested in where else money is being wasted.”
“These kinds of reviews highlight the fact that services can be delivered [by the private sector] more cheaply, and just as efficiently and safely, as if they were being delivered by the public system,” Mr. Matthews said. “I think there’s a strong case to be made for the private sector continuing to be involved in the delivery of public services.”
I think this comment on the NP website sums it up perfectly:
We should nationalize all 3,000 Tim Horton's stores in the country, pay the CUPE members a fair wage, like $28 an hour, and show the greedy corporate bastards we mean business.
We could be proud owners of an iconic Canadian business that racks up multi-million dollar losses every year.But it would be proudly union, and what the hell, the filthy tarsands in Alberta could subsidize it; anyway.
P.S. I don't know if this qualifies as political or not. I'm not commenting on specific parties, just noting something that is in the news. We'll see how mods respond to better clarify what is and isn't allowed.
http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/05/30/money-losing-tim-hortons-in-st-johns-hospital-a-cautionary-tale-critics/
When the Tim Hortons at Newfoundland’s Health Sciences Centre opened in 1995, the hospital’s administrator predicted the shop would turn an annual profit of up to $300,000 and pay for seven nurses — or 11 support staff, or maybe even pay for the increase in chemotherapy drugs for cancer patients.
Instead, the coffee shop at the St. John’s hospital lost about $260,000 last year, offering what critics say is a cautionary tale of what can happen when the public sector gets involved in things better done by private enterprise.
“Let me tell you why [the hospital franchise loses money],” Vickie Kaminski, the authority’s president and CEO, told reporters on Tuesday. “We charge you a buck-ninety-four for that large coffee, but we insist that the staff who are pouring the coffee are Eastern Health staff, and they get paid $28 an hour. No Tim Hortons pays that.”
“Somehow it became public employees running a doughnut shop,” said Lloyd Matthews, who was Newfoundland’s health minister when the location opened at the Health Sciences Centre in 1995. “It brings us all home to the issue of waste in health care …. [It] makes us all a little interested in where else money is being wasted.”
“These kinds of reviews highlight the fact that services can be delivered [by the private sector] more cheaply, and just as efficiently and safely, as if they were being delivered by the public system,” Mr. Matthews said. “I think there’s a strong case to be made for the private sector continuing to be involved in the delivery of public services.”
I think this comment on the NP website sums it up perfectly:
We should nationalize all 3,000 Tim Horton's stores in the country, pay the CUPE members a fair wage, like $28 an hour, and show the greedy corporate bastards we mean business.
We could be proud owners of an iconic Canadian business that racks up multi-million dollar losses every year.But it would be proudly union, and what the hell, the filthy tarsands in Alberta could subsidize it; anyway.
P.S. I don't know if this qualifies as political or not. I'm not commenting on specific parties, just noting something that is in the news. We'll see how mods respond to better clarify what is and isn't allowed.