News Release
Work continues on improving quality of work life for NHS nurses
- Date of Issue: Tuesday, October 19, 2004
- Français
Niagara, ON - Niagara Health System officials pledged their ongoing support to continue to work through the issues affecting nurses across its sites who are members of Ontario Nurses Association Local 026.
In a letter to the ONA local executive and membership in September, NHS President and Chief Executive Office Debbie Sevenpifer stated, "The past few years have been extremely challenging ones for everyone involved in health care -- from our patients through to our employees and our physicians. For the nearly 1,200 nurses serving across our Niagara Health System sites, I know and understand that the issues our nurses face are real and valid."
ONA Local 026 nurses voted recently to re-issue a censure on the NHS that was originally placed on the hospital organization in February, 2003.
NHS Chief Nursing Officer June Duesburry-Porter explains that since the initial censure was issued 18 months ago progress has been made in a number of areas, including staffing and workload issues, communication, and reducing and resolving grievances.
"We've developed new solutions to help address our nursing shortage and workload issues. For example we have completed several programs to enable 27 registered practical nurses to advance to become registered nurses. We've created new, nursing positions like weekend workers, clinical coordinators and float nurses to have more flexibility to deploy nursing staff to clinical areas where additional staffing is needed at the time." Mrs. Duesburry-Porter also notes the establishment of new relationships with a greater number of educational institutions to increase the number of student placements within the Niagara Health System as a recruitment strategy. "In 2003/04 we have provided placements for over 832 students and anticipate achieving our goal of 1,000 student placements in 2004/05."
A key factor in working through the concerns of nurses has been the Relationships by Objectives process to develop and establish new and progressive initiatives aimed at improving relationships between the hospital and our nurses. This joint initiative was launched in mid- 2003 between the NHS and ONA Local 026 executive and serves as a mechanism to work through issues and concerns in a results oriented, productive manner. The parties have continued to meet on a quarterly basis to review the progress being made on a number of key issues of concern to ONA and our RNs.
"A great deal has been accomplished but we are also mindful that there is more work to do. We value our nurses. Nurses are at the front line every day, delivering care to patients. We take all of their concerns including the censure situation very seriously. We're committed to building and sustaining effective and positive working relationships with ONA," adds Mrs. Sevenpifer.