Employers want to rollback decades
 in nurses’ negotiations

Proposals put patients at risk says UNA

Keith Wiley, UNA

Registered nurses across Alberta were angered when health Employers opened their bargaining round with demands for rollbacks in almost every article. "The Employers are looking to rollback the working environment for nurses by decades," United Nurses of Alberta (UNA) President Heather Smith said.

The negotiations cover nearly 20,000 registered nurses in hospital, community health, the Cancer Board and long-term care nursing. The last provincial nurses’ strike was in 1988 when UNA was hit with nearly half a million dollars in fines. Provincial legislation in 1984 made it illegal for nurses to strike. Nurses maintain they have a right to job action and only they will decide whether to strike or not.

Early in February UNA presented a package of research on the value of nursing care to Members of the Legislative Assembly.

Research studies on thousands of cases in thousands of hospitals in Canada and in the U.S. produced some dramatic conclusions about adequate nursing care.

Adding just one extra patient to the caseload of a registered nurse increases the likelihood of a patient dying by 7 percent, according to a study published in the Journal of the Medical Association last October.

An Ontario study of 47,000 patients found that increasing the amount of care by registered nurses by 10% was associated with five fewer deaths for every 1,000 patients.

"This is compelling evidence that cutting corners on registered nurse is a formula for cheaper health care with poorer results. Patients are sicker, suffer more, require more costly care, and more patients die," UNA President Heather Smith says.

Smith said it was important that health policy makers be aware of the research because of what the Health Regions proposed in negotiations. For example, the Regional Employers want to eliminate the Registered Nurse in charge, the only regulation that guarantees there is an RN on every ward and unit.

For nurses, the priority in these negotiations is protecting the standards of nursing care provided to the people of this province. UNA has, for example, proposed patient-to-nurse ratios, a minimum standard of safe levels of nursing care. Recently adopted by legislation in California and in Australian nurses’ collective agreements, ratios protect patients.