Nurses demand halt to Nanaimo nursing cuts

Nurses on Vancouver Island are demanding an immediate halt to a plan to cut nurses at Nanaimo Regional General Hospital because it puts patients' safety at risk.

The Vancouver Island Health Authority scheme would eliminate a total of 26 nurses - both Registered Nurses and Licensed Practical Nurses - from teams providing bedside care on medical, surgical, transition and rehab units at NRGH. It would replace them with 31 unlicensed care-aides. Management is also proposing to eliminate 15 nursing positions that are currently vacant on the units.

"This would be a fundamental change in the way the health authority provides patient care on Vancouver Island," says BC Nurses' Union President Debra McPherson. "The change would significantly reduce patients' access to nursing care, and NRGH is just the first step."

VIHA has told nurses they are intending to roll out the changes across the Island, moving next on Royal Jubilee and Victoria General Hospitals, then on to smaller rural facilities and the community.

"This is completely irresponsible and unacceptable. The changes are motivated entirely by the desire to save money, not patient care," says Jo Taylor, BCNU's regional representative for the central and north island. "It will reduce patients' ability to interact with nurses, even though most of these patients usually are suffering serious illnesses or recovering from serious surgeries."

"We welcome more care aides to the team," Taylor says. "They are capable of helping patients with daily activities such washing, toileting and eating. But as unlicensed workers they simply don't have nurses' expertise to assess and interpret signs and symptoms of illness and possible infection. We're concerned that patients? safety will be compromised."

McPherson says patients will lose nurses' assessment skills, knowledge, experience and judgement. "We stand by years of research showing that more regulated nurses at the bedside leads to better outcomes for patients. This mountain of published research is based on accepted scientific methodology, not time-in-motion studies by people not familiar with healthcare. We demand the health authority show us the proof patient care won't be compromised."

VIHA researched the issue five years ago, but have refused to share its research with the union.

The nurses who will lose their jobs are all trained to focus on the specific needs of patients on their units. Management wants to re-assign the nurses to float pools where they will be deployed wherever they are needed throughout the hospital.

McPherson blames the plan on serious underfunding of healthcare in the last provincial budget, "something we expect the next government to reconsider."