Nurses demand Island Health Board address safety impacts of flawed patient care model

Nurses from Nanaimo and Victoria will descend on the Island Health board meeting today in Victoria to deliver at least 3,000 additional petitions calling for a halt to Island Health's new care model. Over 15,000 people have now signed petitions demanding Island Health agree to an independent expert review of the model's patient safety impacts.

The nurses are also attending the meeting to ask questions directly of the Board, including:

• How often are nurses on the new care model (called "CDMR") units in Nanaimo struggling with excessive and unsafe workloads due to working short-staffed?
• How many more petitions will it take before the board accepts that public opinion clearly supports an independent, expert review of the care model?
• Why are critical factors relating to patient safety, like adverse patient outcomes, not being monitored actively in Nanaimo?

"We are going to press the Board not to continue spreading this unsafe scheme," said Adriane Gear, BCNU South Islands Co-Chair. "We want them to realize that when you replace 100 nurses with care aides as proposed for Victoria, you're doubling the patient responsibility while cutting the nursing capability."

"The public sees that these changes are all about saving money, not about improving care," says Margo Wilton, BCNU South Islands Co-Chair. "Cutbacks can't trump patient safety in the design of hospital care without compromising health outcomes."

"Nanaimo nurses want to share their experience under this model, to help the board realize just how poorly it serves our patients," says Jo Salken, Pacific Rim Chair. "People kept in hospitals today are extremely sick and they require more bedside nursing, not less."

Nurses would welcome the addition of care aides to the existing teams to help patients with activities of daily living, but unlicensed care aides cannot replace professional nurses in providing expert care at the bedside.