Published Dec 4, 2007
wasup
37 Posts
What is the difference between Vancouver Health Authorities? Is there different wages, work condition, facilities?
NotReady4PrimeTime, RN
5 Articles; 7,358 Posts
There are two health authorities that cover the greater Vancouver area, Vancouver Coastal Health and Fraser Health. Vancouver Island Health is responsible for the city of Victoria and all the communities on the island. If you work for a health authority you will be covered by the collective agreement of the province of British Columbia's Health Services Bargaining Association and the British Columbia Nurses' Union. One wage scale and benefits package across the board. Working conditions are individual to the facility or agency, so there are places in each region with great working conditions ( and no vacancies) and places with deplorable working conditions (and many vacancies). You have to just take a chance that the unit you're hired for is a good place...
Fiona59
8,343 Posts
And don't forget the old Catholic hospitals that fall within the Health Authorities jurisdicition. St. Paul's in Vancouver and St. Joseph's in Comox are just a couple that spring to mind. They are covered by the collective agreement but rules and regs that are different.
Different for good or for worth, or till the death part...
What about shifts. Are they the same everywhere, 12 hours? Or it is internal policy of each facility/ health authority?
St Paul's and St Joe's are faith based facilities and have slightly different condiditons in parts of their collective agreement. They aren't usually the sort of conditions that affect working conditions one way or the other although they may refer to the number of hours full timers work, or how vacations are divided up and things like that.
Shift composition is determined by the facility and often by the unit within the facility. The hospital where I work as a casual has 8 hour shifts on most of their general wards, 10 hour shifts in OR and emergency and 12 hour shifts in the ICU and labour and delivery. The hospital where I work my regular job has a similar arrangement with some of each. When you look at a job posting it should say what the hours of work are for that position and its full-time-equivalent (FTE). I work a 0.7 FTE so that's 14x12 (11.63 hours paid time) hour shifts in 6 weeks. Does that help?
Yes, it helps. TNX.