Hard-working hospital workers deserve the full support of Albertans
By Letter to the Editor on April 21, 2021.
Editor:
I just recently spent 10 days in the Chinook Regional Hospital and one at Foothills. I would like to express thanks to all of the dedicated workers who look after our health needs. They work under stressful conditions due to COVID-19 as well as lack of support from Alberta Health and the UCP government.
They were all caring, conscientious , hard working personnel in spite of crowded conditions, old equipment and insufficient staff at times. They deserve our full support for the stressful work they do to keep us safe and healthy.
I was surprised to find that not all of them have even been given the vaccine yet. The imaging department and day procedures seem to have been missed when the vaccine was rolled out for the frontline hospital workers.
I am appalled by the way our Health Minister treats paramedics, nursing staff, doctors etc. In the constant quest to “save money”, while being so generous with their oil industry friends. It is time to get our priorities straight and reward our most important workers.
Frances Schultz
Lethbridge
-1
This: Quote from David Harrigan, director of Labour Relations, United Nurses of Alberta: “Harrigan says he suspects the real reason the province does not want to return to the bargaining table is that it would have to disclose its plan to proceed with a layoff program revealed in late 2019. That plan would see 500 nursing positions (Registered Nurses) eliminated over three years, a figure the UNA is equivalent to over 700 employees losing their jobs once job-sharing is factored in.”
So we have highly trained Registered Nurses working hard, and are exhausted, because of the COVID pandemic and the supposed intention after the pandemic is to lay a bunch of them off. Not only would other provinces welcome Alberta RNs but so would the USA which is what happened during the drastic Klein era health care cuts. At that time, folks who entered the health care system did not have their expectations met because of short staffing, etc. It’s all fine to cut public sector employment such as this but if one, or one of their loved ones, enters the system because of illness or trauma, it’s a real revelation of what care is needed, and, who does it.
Don’t forget we lost 14,783 health care workers under Klein and this clone of Klein is prepared to do the same thing, we are hearing 11,000. This after slashing $9.4 billion off taxes for his rich friends.
Many of the nurses I helped relocate out of this province went to B.C. when Klein kicked them out of here. A friend of mine’s sister became head of nursing in a Vancouver hospital. A nephew lost his job and my next door neighbor lost her job, and five of my senior friends lost theirs. Three of them are coming to lunch with us today.
the most important sectors are essential services: those providing the services should have had first dibs on vaccines. everyone else should have had to wait.