Now available from ILR Press/Cornell University Press--
Cleaning Up: How Hospital Outsourcing Is Hurting Workers and Endangering
Patients
by Dan Zuberi
Cornell University Press is pleased to announce the publication of
Cleaning Up by Dan Zuberi under its ILR Press imprint. This book looks at
how, to cut costs and maximize profits, hospitals in the United States and
elsewhere are outsourcing such tasks as cleaning and food preparation to
private contractors, exploring this issue from two perspectives: its
impact on patient safety and its role in increasing socioeconomic
inequality.
For more information about Cleaning Up, see below and visit the book?s
page on the Cornell University Press web site:
http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100031650.
This book is available from most booksellers or directly from Cornell
University Press via our website and our ordering department (tel:
1-800-666-2211). (If ordering the book directly from Cornell, use the
promo code CAU6 at checkout or when calling to receive 25% discount off
the paperback edition?s US$19.95 list price.)
Customers in Europe should order from our U.K.-based distributor, NBN
International (www.nbninternational.com); in Australia and New Zealand,
please order from Footprint Books (www.footprint.com.au).
Cleaning Up is also available as an ebook from Amazon/Kindle, Apple iBooks
, and Kobo.
Sincerely,
Mahinder Kingra, Director of Marketing
Cornell University Press
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# # #
About Cleaning Up
To cut costs and maximize profits, hospitals in the United States and many
other countries are outsourcing such tasks as cleaning and food
preparation to private contractors. In Cleaning Up, the first book to
examine this transformation in the healthcare industry, Dan Zuberi looks
at the consequences of outsourcing from two perspectives: its impact on
patient safety and its role in increasing socioeconomic inequality.
Drawing on years of field research in Vancouver, Canada as well as data
from hospitals in the U.S. and Europe, he argues that outsourcing has been
disastrous for the cleanliness of hospitals--leading to an increased risk
of hospital-acquired infections, a leading cause of severe illness and
death--as well as for the effective delivery of other hospital services
and the workers themselves.
Zuberi?s interviews with the low-wage workers who keep hospitals running
uncover claims of exposure to near-constant risk of injury and illness.
Many report serious concerns about the quality of the work due to
understaffing, high turnover, poor training and experience, inadequate
cleaning supplies, and on-the-job injuries. Zuberi also presents policy
recommendations for improving patient safety by reducing the risk of
hospital-acquired infection and ameliorating the work conditions and
quality of life of hospital support workers. He makes the case that
hospital outsourcing exemplifies the trend towards ?low-road?
service-sector jobs that threatens to undermine society?s social health,
as well as the physical health and well-being of patients in health care
settings globally.
About the Author
Dan Zuberi is Associate Professor of Social Policy at the University of
Toronto. He is the author of Differences that Matter: Social Policy and
the Working Poor in the United States and Canada, also from Cornell/ILR.
Praise for Hazard or Hardship
?In Cleaning Up, Dan Zuberi describes the alarming trend of rising
hospital-based infection rates in North America. In compelling detail, he
discusses the key role that hospital cleaning staff play in this problem
and links rising rates of infection to deteriorating employment
conditions. He shares the results of a qualitative research project he
conducted that unveils the extreme financial difficulties many of these
workers have experienced in the wake of the outsourcing of their jobs. He
goes on to argue that while outsourcing may save money in the short term,
it leads to deteriorating working conditions and living conditions for the
cleaning staff, reduces the effectiveness of team functioning in
hospitals, and may ultimately increase costs.?
--Christopher Paul Landrigan, MD, MPH, Harvard Medical School, Brigham and
Women?s Hospital, and Children?s Hospital Boston
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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