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February 28, 2003
Victory for Registered Nurses and their residents
Mission extended care facility agrees to retain RNs, shelves plan to replace them with Licensed Practical Nurses
In a victory that could inspire other success stories across the province, nurses at Mission Memorial Hospital’s extended care unit have convinced management to keep all three Registered Nurses on day shift at the facility, instead of replacing two of them with LPNs.
The facility will maintain the current staffing mix for at least one year.
The victory follows three months of effort by nurses to bring forward concerns that the facility’s unstable, acutely ill residents would not receive the care they needed by replacing the RNs with LPNs.
The scheme to replace RNs with LPNs in all its extended care facilities is part of an effort by the Fraser Health Authority to balance its budget under orders from the provincial Liberal government.
To push back the scheme, the RNs wrote a paper describing their work and the value they bring to residents’ care. The paper demonstrated that the alleged cost savings management was touting would not materialize, because with only one RN available the facility would be forced to transfer residents more often to acute care hospitals, and residents needing surgery would be forced to remain in hospital longer before they could be returned to extended care.
Instead of replacing the RNs with LPNs, the RNs proposed augmenting current staffing by adding one LPN to daytime staffing to relieve an already large nursing workload and improve care for residents.
Congratulations to the BCNU members and stewards at Mission Memorial Hospital for this hard-earned victory.
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