The scheduling portion of the Administrative Information Management System (AIMS) used by health care workers has been scrapped by the SHA at the direction of the provincial government.

The decision comes after SEIU-West sounded the alarm that AIMS was causing challenges with scheduling and pay for workers in the former Cypress Health Region.

The union had said at the time that members were unable to pay their bills and unable to make ends meet and patients in the health care system are being short changed because AIMS isn’t scheduling enough staff.

SEIU-West President Lisa Zunti says the issues caused by AIMS affected both health care workers and patients.

“If your scheduled shifts aren’t reported properly to payroll, your paycheck will be affected. Additionally, shifts that aren’t scheduled and filled appropriately leave patients and residents without the care they need and deserve.”

NDP Associate Shadow Minister of Health Keith Jorgenson says that the scheduling portion of AIMS was not the only thing wrong with the system and adds that there are still issues with other portions which are still being used by health care workers.

“We hear all kinds of horror stories from health care workers about not being notified appropriately of their shifts, then not being paid on time, paid overtime. We also reconfirmed with some people that have complained about the procurement side of that, where they order supplies, the vendors aren’t paid for the supplies and then the vendors stop sending the supplies they need to long-term care centres.”

Jorgenson adds that AIMS has cost taxpayers $272 million when it was originally supposed to cost $80,000.

The SHA will revert to using its previous scheduling system, a switch that is expected to be completed by Nov. 30.