Northern Nurses Take To Streets

By 250 News

Nurses rally at corner of 3rd Avenue and Brunswick Street

Prince George, B.C. -  A group of approximately 50 nurses and their supporters took to the streets this afternoon to go public with concerns over patient care at the University Hospital of Northern B.C. and across the region.

A posterboard-size letter addressed to B.C. Health Minister, Kevin Falcon, was on display, with nurses adding their comments over the past month.  Some of the comments read, "Patient care is compromised",  "Bathrooms and corridors are not patient bedrooms", and "Regional hospitals should be able to service the region".

The rally on the corner of 3rd Avenue and Brunswick Street coincided with the public session of the Northern Health Authority's Board of Directors meeting at 1pm.  The nurses had wanted to speak at that session, but the request was denied based on Board policy.  (click here, for earlier story)

BC Nurses Union NorthEast Regional Chair, Jackie Nault, says, "It is very much front line issues:  it's got to do with workload, it's got to do with not having enough fully qualified nurses to work in specialty areas -- especially ICU, PACU, and Emergency -- we need the training, we need the staff, we need more nurses in order to supply that quality care."

Nault says over the past two years, nurses have tried to resolve their issues with the Northern Health Authority through the process mandated in their collective agreement in 2006 -- filing 250 Professional Responsibility Forms -- and "those have not been dealt with."

Prior to today's rally, the BCNU had put up posters in the hospital advertising today's rally and outlining some of their concerns.  An internal memo sent to staff from Northern Health Chief Operating Officer, Michael McMillan addressed some of the nurses' recommendations.  With regards to a union call for increased hiring of new graduate nurses, McMillan wrote "As always, Northern Health actively focused recruitment efforts on the new graduates from the nursing programs within the north.  We hired the majority of the graduates of these programs this year." 

As for increased critical care and high acuity education for nurses.  McMillan responded, "We are very supportive of this suggestion."

Nault says, "But the whole point is, and I can't speak for them (Northern Health), I think it does come down at times to budget issues and to what their abilities are and everything."

She says, "There has been numerous meetings and numerous phone calls from people down at the union office with Michael McMillan and we have another meeting set up for the 8th of November."

Click on video icon on left for a portion of Nault's address to those gathered.

In the interim, Nault told a cheering crowd of nurses that now the issues have been brought to light, "We will continue...to push forward so that we can ensure that our people in the north have good, quality patient care."

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