BCNU celebrates Nursing Week

BCNU will celebrate National Nursing Week next week with a variety of projects and activities. Our seventh annual professional nursing conference gets underway on May 14th, radio ads honouring our members start May 6th and run right through LPN Day on May 13th and newspaper ads calling for BC's nurses to be given a leading role in healthcare planning will appear across the province.

Nursing Week falls within the current BC Provincial Election this year, so BCNU's newspaper ads throughout BC will be directed to the next government and asks them to keep the promise of quality healthcare through safe staffing. The ad calls on government to listen to BC's nurses and reminds politicians they must fund the promise to hire over 2000 more nurses to provide safe care in BC. Another key demand is the need for nurses to be utilized to the full extent of their knowledge and practice in order to improve services for British Columbians in primary healthcare, senior's care, rural communities and elsewhere. Nurses will also be visiting their local candidates and asking them to sign a Candidate Pledge for Safe Care.

The union's seventh annual Nursing Week conference May 14-15 entitled "Mapping the Landscape of Pain" (registration now closed), explores the latest research on pain and its treatment and looks at the impact of this critical issue on nurses' working lives.

All of BCNU's initiatives support Nursing Week's theme this year, Nursing: A Leading Force For Change. We hope every community and every British Columbian takes a minute to celebrate nurses as the highly skilled professional workers that we are, and to appreciate the dedication we bring to our work - day in and day out across our province. In the long run, we hope the new government and health employers respect nurses, trust our judgment and knowledge and recognize our ability to lead positive change in improving the quality of public healthcare for the patients and families that we serve.