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Employer locks nurses out and refuses patients surgeries
Nurses in Trail and across the province are outraged after the Trail Regional Hospital locked out operating room staff today. The employer canceled surgery and refused to deploy valuable nursing resources.
The hospital canceled all surgeries today, after nurses staged a study session for operating room, recovery room and surgical nurses.
The nurses returned to their units at 2pm prepared to work, but the employer refused to start surgeries or deploy the nurses to other units. The nurses offered to work and were dressed for surgery, but the employer sent them out of the hospital. There were two patients waiting in hospital beds for surgery that could have been done after the study session.
The Nurses’ Bargaining Association is concerned that this employer’s short-sightedness forced more operations to be cancelled than was necessary. Rather than locking nurses out, hospital administrators should be pressing the Health Employers’ Association of BC to take their concessions that are stalling bargaining off the table and negotiate a globally competitive settlement that will retain and attract more nurses to communities in the West Kootenays and throughout BC.
"Locking out nurses and cancelling surgeries that could go ahead is outrageous," says Debra McPherson, president of the BC Nurses’ Union, "Health care administrator should be doing the best they can to continue services during this dispute, not making the situation worse."
For more information:
| Gerri Reinhard, BCNU Regional Chairperson, cell: |
1 250-368-7767 |
| Karen Cappelletto, BCNU communications member, pager: |
1 250-364-9116 |
| Pam Piddocke, BCNU communications officer, cell: |
604 209-4259 |
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