Nurses
Send a Message to Health Authority CEO
Keep
the Promise of Safer Care through Safe Staffing
at
Women’s and Children’s Hospital
Hundreds of BC’s nurses
rallied today at BC Children’s and Women’s Hospital. They were there to deliver
a message to Provincial Health Services Authority President and CEO Lynda
Cranston that she and her management team need to hear and act on concerns that
nurses have been raising for years.
Nurses want her to keep the
promise of quality healthcare through safe staffing.
Since September 2012 the
Labour and Delivery Unit has lost twelve nurses. Nineteen experienced nurses
from the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit have also left in the past six months.
Despite new contract language
which commits the employer to replace nurses when they are sick, fill vacancies
and provide sufficient nurses for safe care, the constant use of overtime in
the birthing unit and continual call-ins to already over-worked nurses to cover
shifts is the norm.
An independent report
released in August 2012 that looked at issues in the unit called for leaders to
communicate and engage more effectively with the nurses, and create flexibility
and training opportunities so that nurses can manage their work/lives better.
Few if any of the suggestions have been implemented and BCNU is concerned that
the stress on nurses and concerns over safe care are moving to other areas of
the facility. Over 70 nurses in PICU recently signed a petition expressing
concerns for their ability to protect their patients’ safety and the facility’s
inability to retain the specialized nurses required for critically ill children
in the unit.
“Nurses here are burnt out
from working extra shifts, not being replaced when sick, and from not being
respected,” said Debra McPherson, President of the BC Nurses’ Union.
“Well we have a message for
Lynda Cranston and the managers who are refusing to take the required actions to
improve the working environment and the care here at BC Women’s and Children’s
hospital, Keep your promises!,” concluded McPherson.
via BCNu
e-mail News to VNN Return to PlayInVictoria.net
"this page and website is in beta and is subject to change or be removed without notice"
