Looking for an MRI

saskrn · Jan 28, 2005

Good for you! I'm sure it's a fight that's long overdue. I encourage my DH, who is ar RN in the SICU not to get dumped on. I tell him to bring up the professional accountability and responsibility issues and to throw the SRNA in there for good measure. I don't know about there, but here it seems like if you give an inch, someone will take a mile.

Are you fighting the good fight alone?

Pediatric Critical Care Columnist · Jan 28, 2005

I think I have enough support that I won't be standing there alone. I'm the unit rep for our union and as such have been fielding a lot of questions about our "new" contract. There are some changes that are making a lot of people very angry, because they feel they were sneaked in without proper notification to those affected. Totally true. I blame both the employer and the local for that. Anyway, I filed a professional responsibility complaint over an unsafe assignment back in December, and had to call the local office to get the forms. There weren't any on the unit, although there are supposed to be. I got three of them, filed one and put the other two in the binder in the staff room. Lo and behold, I checked on the weekend and there aren't any again. I am encouraged by this, because so many people told me from experience that there would be repercussions from filling one out... and there were. I was "interviewed" by two of our managers, who both tried to make me think that I had done something very wrong, and tried to intimidate me into not doing it again. Looks like I might be getting through to the rank and file that if it isn't documented, it didn't happen and it won't get fixed. Now I need to get some more forms! I smell change upon the wind.

saskrn · Jan 28, 2005

If everyone leaves a paper trail, then they have to acknowledge it. It bothers me that so many nurses are afraid to speak up because of possible ramifications. I had witnessed actions like these in the US, but hoped Canada would somehow be different, but apparently not. Stand your ground and don't let them intimidate you! Although, I doubt that would happen. :)

I feel so union stupid. Of course it's important and I support it, I'm just out of the loop. I give you credit for being a rep! I was not pleased to discover that my union rep is very good friends with my manager. I really question how effective she would be in a confrontational situation. Our contract is up in a couple of months. With both DH and me being RN's, I hope we don't strike.

Pediatric Critical Care Columnist · Jan 28, 2005

I too am disturbed that your area rep is friends with the manager. It could be a bad thing in a crunch situation. I guess everyone will have to be on thier toes and keep an eye on things.

Get a copy of your collective agreement and read it. You need to be well-informed when the bargaining starts, because your local is going to need input from the front lines. Don't worry about the lingo, if there's anything you don't understand, PM me and I'll help you out. Saskatchewan can't afford another nurses' strike, so you may find that negotiations are more saber rattling than anything. You have a strong and fearless provincial president. In Alberta, it's illegal for nurses to strike, so we always have an uphill battle, especially with King Ralph wanting to dismantle the Canada Health Act all by his lonesome. We just settled last June, but the contract had expired 15 months before that and we'll be back at it next year. Keep in touch.

Jan

saskrn · Jan 30, 2005

Nurses can't strike in Alberta? That seems highly unfair. What do you use for leverage when it comes to bargaining?

I have seen alot of Ralph Klein on TV, always related to healthcare (please bear with me, still learning the government ropes hese). Why is it that he is such a key player in healthcare? At the risk of stepping of offending anyone, he seems a little arrogant. Mind you, he is a politician, so no surprise!

I appreciate your offer to help with the verbiage. And there is alot of it!

Pediatric Critical Care Columnist · Jan 30, 2005

i know it's a sad thing that nurses cannot strike in alberta. during our last marathon negotiations, our bargaining committee told the province that if the membership said "strike", we'd strike. the province threatened us with gi-normous fines if we walked, but that didn't phase our pcbc. we ran information pickets at all of the large facilities in the province, ran ads in the media and kept the pressure on. it worked. they had to back off on some of the more regressive things they wanted to force on us and we ended up with a collective agreement that works for most of us. interestingly, the minister of health refused to involve himself with any of it, because the battle was between una and the health regions. who does he think he's kidding?

ralph klein is a former very popular mayor of calgary who was elected nearly 12 years ago by a landslide by promising to balance the budget and eliminate the deficit. to accomplish these goals he changed the definition of welfare so that about 30% of recipients were no longer eligible. he made aish so unwieldy as to deter people from applying in the first place. he closed hospitals and laid off nurses left and right. he introduced a health care premium that has been increased on a regular basis and opened up the province for private health care by ramming through bill 11 which provides for surgical and diagnostic services paid for by the client so they can get in quicker. now most of the diagnostic stuff (lab work and imaging) is contracted out to private companies like mic and dynacare kasper. his agenda leans toward delisting a huge range of services and greatly increasing the private sector's share of the pie, shifting the cost burden onto the individual. that's what makes him so much in the news. he's indicated he won't run in the next election so now we need to watch him even more closely, since he has nothing to lose. scary times.

saskrn · Jan 31, 2005

That actually is really scarey. What might he do at the last minute to leave his mark? One really never knows. Well, here I thought Alberta had it all figured out, but I didn't realize that residents were picking up any of the tab. Big surprise. :stone

We've often thought of moving to Alberta, just talked about it again today, actually. DH works SICU, and I was supposed to be doing ICU, but instead am doing telephone triage because of my leg. I know that Calgary and Edmonton have nurse lines (for lack of a better term), and ICU is always short staffed. We don't really want a big city though. Any thoughts of places to go or avoid? We're pretty angry with healthcare here. And I guess with the new diabetes diagnosis, I'm going to need health care. lol