Tentative deal for nurses union a positive step in current vacancy crisis
After more than two and a half years in negotiation, the provincial government and the New Brunswick Nurses Union have reached tentative collective agreements for two bargaining units including more than 6,000 registered nurses, nurse practitioners, nurse managers and nurse supervisors. The province announced the deal in a news release Friday morning, and said details of the agreements will be withheld pending ratification.
The tentative agreements are a positive step in a crisis that has seen a nursing shortage cause reduced emergency room services in three rural hospitals in New Brunswick, including the Sackville Memorial Hospital.
CHMA spoke the New Brunswick Nurses Union president Paula Doucet back in June to talk about the shortage, the current plight of working nurses in the province, and potential solutions.
Hear Paula Doucet speaking on Tantramar Report:
“Unfortunately, the entire provinces is feeling this the nursing shortage,” says Doucet, “whether you’re in Sackville or Campbellton, Grand Manan, Saint John, Fredericton, Bathurst, Edmundston… Pick your community, pick your city, we’re all in this.”
Sackville’s emergency room is down three RNs from a full complement of nine. “For a facility of the size of Sackville, missing three nurses or five nurses or even one nurse, you really feel that,” says Doucet. And then, “not too far down the road, you look at what’s going on at the George Dumont or the Moncton City Hospital, where in one facility, there’s upwards of 125 vacancies.”
When CHMA spoke with Doucet in June, the scale of the province-wide shortage was pegged at 700 vacancies.… Continue