WESTLOCK – Westlock-area nurses will join their brethren across the province this week and hold an information picket dubbed a “Day of Action” outside the Westlock Healthcare Centre to protest proposed wage rollbacks and other cutbacks.
Slated to begin at 10 a.m. Tuesday, Aug. 10, the local picket by United Nurses of Alberta Local 73 members is one of 15 planned provincewide to address rollbacks the union calls “an insult to nurses.” Similar events are planned for Edmonton and Calgary the following day, Aug. 11, as well as in smaller centre likes Whitecourt and Ponoka.
At the beginning of July, Alberta's finance minister Travis Toews said they’re aiming to rollback nurses' wages to help balance the province's finances — Alberta Health Services is asking for a three per cent pay cut as part of ongoing labour negotiations with the United Nurses of Alberta.
The union, which represents more than 30,000 registered nurses, registered psychiatric nurses and allied workers in Alberta, has previously stated that the wage rollback, when added to the elimination of the semi-annual lump sum payments, reduced shift and weekend premiums, will reduce nurses’ compensation by five per cent.
"The rollbacks proposed by the government are an insult to nurses and won’t help Alberta recruit and keep health care workers, which is what we need to keep hospital beds open," reads a release from the UNA.
"Nurses go to work every day to make sure Albertans get the best and safest patient care possible. What we want most is fairness in the workplace.”
After 18 months on the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic, Alberta’s nurses are exhausted and overworked, the UNA release continues.
"Money is not the only issue in these talks. They want to rollback provisions that nurses have had for decades, including a very important rule that a registered nurse or registered psychiatric nurse is in-charge of nursing units," the release states.
“Beds are closing because hospitals are short of nurses. This is because of the pandemic burnout and a long history of understaffing nurses."
Hospital bed closures are due to shortage of nurses
A nursing shortage is beicng blamed for a temporary reduction of acute care beds at the Westlock Healthcare Centre that’s slated to run July 26 to Aug. 29.
Alberta Health Services says the number of acute care beds at the Westlock hospital have been reduced from 46 to 36, which leaves 78 per cent of the facility’s beds open. Emergency services, the stroke program and surgical services remain available and operational, while obstetrics is temporarily shuttered, Aug. 1-13, due to a lack of a doctor.
AHS North Zone senior communications officer Logan Clow said Westlock is specifically facing a temporary shortage of registered and licensed practical nurses and said they’re pursuing recruitment strategies, including utilization of contract and temporary nursing supports, that aim to fill existing vacancies by the end of August or September “and perhaps earlier.”
In a July 27 interview, Athabasca-Barrhead-Westlock MLA Glenn van Dijken said he’s well aware of the temporary closure and said the community shouldn’t be concerned. Both van Dijken and Clow said temporary bed reductions do occur occasionally over the summer months and are only done as a last resort. According to the AHS the historical average occupancy at the hospital is 81 per cent in April, 71 per cent in May and 67 per cent in June.
“My main concern is, are the needs of the community being met and is this ideal? I would suggest not. But are our residents and constituents being put in a spot that they won’t receive the care they need? I don’t believe so,” said van Dijken in the same July 27 interview.
The Westlock bed reduction comes on the heels of a similar one in Barrhead that saw the temporary closure of 10 in-patient beds.
The obstetrics program in Barrhead, which was also temporarily closed, will be shuttered Aug. 14-29 due to a lack of doctors. In addition, the Boyle Healthcare Centre’s emergency department saw a number of temporary shutdowns throughout June, while Westlock was temporarily unable to provide C-sections via its obstetrics program for a portion of May, all of June and the first part of July.
