Dozens gathered to show their support for nurses in Alberta at a United Nurses of Alberta info walk Wednesday at Medicine Hat Regional Hospital.--NEWS PHOTO RYAN MCCRACKEN
lthomson@medicinehatnews.com
Medicine Hat nurses and other supporters gathered outside the Medicine Hat Regional Hospital yesterday to rally against proposed changes to nursing contracts, along with similar groups all over the province after a Call To Action was announced on the United Nurses of Alberta website earlier this week.
The UNA website states that information pickets or walks were “expected to take place at more than 25 worksites across Alberta,” and that “members of United Nurses of Alberta will send a message to the Alberta government … of their commitment to Albertans and our province’s public health care system.”
Megan Eggins, registered nurse of 15 years and the acting president for Local 70 -the largest local UNA – attended the walk with dozens of others. She says she has serious concerns about what the provincial government is doing with nursing.
“It’s always been raised that there’s nursing shortages and it’s just going to keep skyrocketing,” said Eggins. “These rollbacks are not going to help retain any nurses, so it’s troublesome to look at it that way.”
Eggins also hopes to raise awareness about the fact nurses originally went into negotiations with the province pre-COVID, at which point the government was offering a wage freeze.
“It’s definitely a slap across the face when we came back to the bargaining table to hear they were actually withdrawing what they originally said and it’s now 3% (rollback),” Eggins explained. “It’s a strenuous job. Especially with this pandemic, we’re overworked, over stressed and over exhausted. And morale is the low, and with morale comes retention and patient care, and that is concerning.”
Kathy Bayer, a retired RN, was also in attendance. She agrees job retention will be difficult with the government’s plans for changes and says many nurses she talks to haven’t had a raise in at least five years, but that money isn’t the only issue.
Bayer is concerned about the government’s plans to take control of nursing units away from RNs and wonders what “other profession would be as capable or have more knowledge than an RN does to know how a unit runs.”
Bayer says besides the pay cut, the government’s plan to cut other provisions from the contract is also a move in the wrong direction.
“A lot of the articles or so called perks that are in the contract now were put there because back when they decimated health care in the Klein days, we could not get RNs to come to Alberta or to stay in Alberta,” Bayer explained. “So a lot of those perks were put in at that point to recruit and retain and those are all the articles that they’re trying to get rid of again.”
Both Eggins and Bayer expressed that nurses have patient care at the forefront of their concerns, but feel that will suffer in situations like this.
The UNA website says, “Nurses want to be able to focus on safe patient care. But that’s hard to do when hospitals are under-staffed and the government is attacking nurses and health care workers.”
Eggins says nurses are disappointed after delaying negotiations because of COVID for more than a year.
“This is what they’ve come back with, and it’s disappointing to say the least,” Eggins said. “There’s stronger words I could use but I won’t. It’s disappointing and I’m concerned about all the other health professions that are coming up for negotiations. I think this is the start of many rollbacks everywhere.”
