For those considering Canada, read on...

In Alberta the news continues to be very bad for nurses and for all health care employees. Dr Duckett has just released the details of an early retirement buyout (nothing near as generous as those given to those ousted from the regional health authorities earlier in the year, actually rather insulting if you ask me) for non-unionized health care personnel. People have until September 18, 2009 (2 weeks from the date of the announcement... a Friday of course) to decide whether they're interested. The decision will be a permanent one should the deal go forward. There are no targets for how many people will actually be granted the buyout, but Dr Duckett has said that he's trying to avoid laying people off. All of this in the face of a looming H1N1 crisis...

If you're still unconvinced, go to www.edmontonjournal.com and type "health care" into the search bar. You'll be astounded at what you'll read.

Duckett will have a really hard time selling layoffs to the unions since the unions actually have people on the front lines and know just how tightly-staffed many units are. (Unlike CARNA, whose personnel have no real idea what's going on outside their ivory towers... they're too busy counting their money anyway.) That's not to say that AHS won't try to force layoffs; as horrible as this may sound, I almost hope we're slammed with H1N1 and AHS has to back-pedal.