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Sodexho's overseas scandal

CHARLOTTE PETRIE

Sodexho, the giant global service management corporation, has had it's fair share of bad publicity, not only in Canada and the U.S., but also overseas.

Sodexho was slammed in March 2002 by the Glasgow Evening Times for services provided at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary, Scotland's largest hospital.

The Times published an expose on Sodexho's service delivery practices March 11. In it, hospital union workers call on Scotland's health minister to fire the company for failing to deliver decent services.

An inspection team comprised of management and union members found what they described as filthy conditions throughout the hospital in areas used by patients and staff.

The unions claimed that short staffing and underfunding were the reasons for unsafe workplace conditions and work practices, which were putting patients at risk.

The article, Infirmary's bloody disgrace by John McCann includes a photograph taken during McCann's investigation that shows piles of soiled bags and discarded operating material and waste stacked with bundles of linen near the infirmary's ambulance bay.

Another picture shows bloody clothing being transported in the same elevator that takes meals to surgical patients. Other photographs reveal porters moving bags of contaminated material without protective clothing, and bags of garbage jamming open doorways.

Carolyn Leckie, the hospital's union secretary is quoted saying that "What we found is the result of years of underfunding. This is made worse by private firms milking profits and potentially putting patients at risk.

"We want an end to privatization."

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