As a Registered Nurse (RN) who is a health care advocate I am appalled at what I hear and see happening in Alberta Health Services (AHS). Too many RNs?
After spending how much money on recruiting international educated nurses and now AHS has no jobs for our 200 Alberta RN graduates? What changed overnight? Is this 1990? Haven't we been here before? By AHS saying we have too many RNs in this province does it make it so?
Or is this their way of balancing the budget, creating a situation to increase wait times, to manufacture appearances of a failing public system and introduce more private industry? We were recovering from the 1990s with some units at full staffing for the first time in years. In the last week the changes that have started with the direction and hard line to get the budget in line have set us back 10 years. We have also heard from Dr. Stephen Duckett, the CEO of AHS, that times will get even tougher. Meanwhile RNs are having overtime denied, causing them to work short, working through meal breaks, working double shifts, having vacations denied and still doing more with less!
Nothing has changed with the workload — people still get sick. We broke a record last month with the babies that were born at our facility; we are serving our pediatric population in a tent, and our ERs have implemented an over-capacity protocol. This means if you've been in the ER lately, we are full.
RNs are retiring, statistically our population is aging and we do not have the young resources we will need to replace them. You cannot just manufacture a new nurse. It takes time and training to develop the critical thinking skills you, the public, want in someone caring for you in a time of crisis and need. Research indicates that the more RNs you have delivering care, the safer you are. This is a fact and in print.
So think about it: budget versus health care, you the public will have to decide. Minister Ron Liepert has stated in his TV interviews that the public is fine with his plan. Do you even know what it is? What I do know is with this government’s tactics to balance their budget, you will wait longer and pay more!
Sherry Stone, St. Albert
