Alberta Health Services

[Fiona59]

OK, we've all heard that they are eliminating 100 managerial positions.

We got the OT ban announcement last week, followed by the "part timers should pick up shifts before OT is permitted" (well, duh, that's in the contracts, can't help it if the staffing office failed to follow the rules), followed by the those on OT will be floated off to units within their services that are short.

How about the wonderful pens for nursing week?

How is AHS affecting your work day?

[linzz]

This is off topic, but is Duckett or however it is spelled really an M.D.?

Maybe when he makes Alberta as bad as Ontario, people will vote him out.

[krisaj]

Just one more question for Janfrn, where is the nurses union?

[Fiona59]

Duckett has a PhD in Economics. Dr. Duckitt is a quack when it comes to healthcare.

UNA the union for RNs is getting ready to start bargaining.

AUPE the union for LPNs.

Both unions are vocal in their opposition to what the government is doing. AUPE probably more so because it bargains for more than the LPNs. They cover an assortment of support workers, some Social Workers, OTs and PTs. HSAA covers the bulk of Social Workers, Lab Techs, etc. It's been vocal as well.

You have to realize that Alberta is not a pro-union province. The government has always been pro-big business and it's interests.

[NotReady4PrimeTime, RN]

Dr Duckett was not elected, he was hired by the minister of health, Ron Liepert to become the president and CEO for Alberta Health Services. So we, the voters, cannot do anything to get him out of there. Since the premier, Ed Stelmach received a 77.4% approval for his leadership at the review last week, we will see few changes in government for at least another 2 years. There may be a cabinet shuffle in the offing but the framework has been laid and it'll be like trying to turn the Titanic around to stop any of it.

UNA's contract expires at the end of March. This anti-labour province has legislated that nurses are essential services and do not have the right to strike, so our negotiations are always very lengthy and demoralizing, even when the coffers are overflowing. Since the current government has managed to take a surplus of $8 BILLION and turn it into a deficit of $8 BILLION in the space of 6 months, these negotiations are likely to last the better part of the year. Doesn't that sound like fun?

[NotReady4PrimeTime, RN]

An Update:

The United Nurses of Alberta held a ratification vote on November 9, 2009. The vote was on whether or not the UNA would accept the terms of the Voluntary Exit Plan cooked up by Dr Duckett to "minimize layoffs". The basics of the plan include 1.5 weeks severance pay per year of service up to a maximum of 52 weeks - based on the nurse's most recent hire date. (Example: Mary Jones has worked in Alberta for 30 years altogether. She was initially hired as a new grad at Foothills Hospital in Calgary in 1979. In 1984 she changed jobs and worked in the ICU at Rockyview until 1990 at which time her husband took a job in Fort McMurray and she moved her skills to the hospital there. In September 2007 he retired and the couple moved to Edmonton where Mary took a position in the ER at the Sturgeon General hospital in St Albert. If she decided to take voluntary exit now Mary's severance would be the whopping sum of 3 weeks' pay.) Other little clauses include the 4-weeks-from-date-of-ratification deadline for interested parties to apply, AHS's four months to decide to accept the application or not, AHS's right to determine the actual termination date, and AHS's ability to change its mind after the fact. One of the criteria used to decide whether an application is accepted or not rests on whether the person's position would then be deleted or not. Basically anyone working in critical care areas are not included because their positions would then have to be filled. At least for the moment! Perhaps by spring we'll have a tele tech and a CNA doing all the care in the ICUs, with an RN popping in every couple of hours to give meds...

The plan was ratified by the UNA on the premise that if people were considering retirement in the next year or so and chose to retire early "to help minimize layoffs" they should at least get something out of it. When one looks at the platinum-plated severance packages and pensions given to administrators and board members, it seems rather an insult to be offered the paltry amount of 1.5 weeks' pay per year, but these nurses would otherwise get nothing but their piddly pensions, so perhaps it is a good deal. I personally don't think so but then I'm not going to be in a position to retire until I'm at least 65... And I might be dead by then!

[Fiona59]

Hah. You can retire at 65?

I think I'll be dead and cremated before my pension is worth anything.

[NotReady4PrimeTime, RN]

Well, I'm thinking the mortgage might be paid off by then...

[Guest233447]

What an insulting offer. I hate bureaucracy - a system that seems only to take care of the bureaucrats. Something is wrong when you have the power to "vote" yourself a raise, and set the own terms of your severance package while at the same time setting the terms that screw all the "little" people.

I understand revolutions. It seems time for one. Keep dreaming I guess.

[NotReady4PrimeTime, RN]

Yeah, we could revolt but we'd all end up in jail... Alberta being the oh-so-labour-friendly province that it is.

[RGN1]

I don't see it changing anytime soon unless there is a lightening bolt and somebody forgets to Duckit.

:yeah:

[Fiona59]

What gets me about the scheduled parking increases is half the time when I work evenings I circle our shared (public/staff) parkade looking for a spot. In winter it's usually on the roof, so I get to scrape and dig the car out at midnight. I walk there unescorted because security is nowhere to be found. The camera system in our parkade is useless. We've had hit and runs in their and there is never any footage of the event. Usually the victim parked "just out of range". Do the cameras even work???

What gets me is most of the patients and their families think we park there for free.

[DorothyDawnRN]

Hello,

I have just moved to Alberta from Nova Scotia. I was away from nursing for a few years and took the nursing recertification program from Grant MacEwan in Nova Scotia this past winter. (Didn't Mr. Duckett say any Alberta nurse grad will have a job?) I have applied for 70 positions in AHS, so far nothing happening. Then today I read that AHS will not fill any of the positions I have applied for. This is so frustrating knowing that if I was hired on one of the floors in any of Calgary's hospitals it would help reduce overtime and staff stress and I would also be employed . I am thinking of commuting to my in-laws in the Okanagan for a shift of 4 then come back home to my family on my days off.

Is this whole situation asinine or what?

Hope everything is back to normal soon,

Dorothy