Prince George Nurses Unhappy

Tuesday, November 09, 2010 07:53 PM

Prince George- The President of the BC Nurses Union says the members are extremely disappointed with the results of the meeting held with senior Northern Health Authority officials regarding critical care patient safety at University Hospital of Northern BC.

“The meeting showed the health authority still doesn’t get it”, says Debra McPherson, president of the BC Nurses’ Union. “They just don’t understand that front line healthcare providers must be able to participate in planning changes that affect their practice.”

While the health authority shared some long term plans for expanding capacity in intensive care and surgical step down units, McPherson notes there were “no solutions for dealing with the immediate crisis, that the hospital is not providing enough nurses to provide safe care for critical care patients”.

The health authority is still refusing to allow front line nurses and BCNU representation on working groups charged with coming up with solutions. And after promising nurses for weeks that they would see a working group report yesterday, all Chief Operating Officer Michael McMillan would provide was a summary that he had written during the weekend.

“After more than 250 professional responsibility reports from nurses about unsafe conditions and promises from management that things would change, we expected something better than we got,” McPherson says. “It’s one thing for the health authority to say that ‘patient safety and quality always come first’. It’s quite another to take action to ensure it happens.”

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Posted on Tuesday, November 09, 2010 07:53 PM in News by 250 News

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Comments

Posted by: metalman on November 9 2010 10:22 PM

I think the NHA is a bloated, inefficient organization, with it's multiple layers of management and incredible bureaucracy. So typical that they will not let frontline workers join the discussion about how to solve some of the problems. They allow perpetuation of the age old rivalry between management and workers, which is stupid.
metalman.

Posted by: univ on November 9 2010 11:17 PM

The union at this late stage has 2 options. (1) To go along with the mismanagement of the Northern Health administration and expect things to get worse or (2) go on strike and ask for the top executives and the Northern Health board members to be replaced. Things are not moving, because the board are fully supporting the abuse of the employees and patient rights by the administration. It is also an Ego probem.

I am sure that Shirley Bond and Bell, the other MLA of Prince George, are fully aware of this mismanagement and abusive environment, but they value their personal friendship with the board members more than the interests of the PG tax payers.

Bond and Bell, by their silence, are encouraging this and prolonging the abuse. Are they back from their vacation?

Posted by: scorpio on November 11 2010 7:54 AM

Power is dangerous in some people and here is a good example!!!!!!
What can the public do to help these nurses????? I fully support them on whatever decision they make to get these board members to wake up and serve the publics needs.