Ontario Nurses’ Association Says Workplace Violence Will Increase as Royal Ottawa, Brockville Mental Health Cut Registered Nurses
OTTAWA – The President of the Ontario Nurses’ Association (ONA) is shocked at cuts to Registered Nurses (RNs) at the Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre and Brockville Mental Health, saying that workplace violence will increase in the wake of the cuts.
“The very units on which RNs have been critically injured in assaults are now going to have fewer RNs working on them,” notes Linda Haslam-Stroud, RN. “It’s simply outrageous. Royal Ottawa is cutting two full-time and five part-time RN positions on its Forensic Rehabilitation Unit; Brockville is cutting seven full-time and two part-time RN positions in its Forensic Treatment Unit. This is a loss of more than 25,000 hours a year of high-quality RN care for mental health patients and will lead to greater risk of violence for both the remaining RNs and our patients.”
The news is particularly galling as ONA has been calling for increased RN staffing as one tool in the battle against workplace violence. The Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre is part of the Royal Ottawa Health Care Group which, earlier this year, saw Ministry of Labour charges against it for failing to keep staff safe dismissed. The Ministry of Labour is appealing the decision.
The Ministry of Labour has also charged Royal Ottawa Health Group with five infractions under the Occupational Health and Safety Act in another incident in which a registered nurse was stabbed in the throat by a patient at the Royal Ottawa Health Care Group's Brockville site.
“Our vulnerable patients deserve the best quality care possible,” said Haslam-Stroud. “Cutting RN positions has been shown in study after study to result in patients suffering more complications. RN care is vital to these patients, who are unstable and unpredictable and require the care of an RN.”
Ontario hospitals have cut more than 1,600 RN positions in the past 23 months.
“Ontarians have to get loud about the need for more RNs in their hospitals now,” says Haslam-Stroud. “We are putting the health and safety of our RNs and our patients at risk. Speak up now or lose quality health care you need.”
ONA is the union representing 62,000 registered nurses and allied health professionals, as well as almost 16,000 nursing student affiliates, providing care in hospitals, long-term care facilities, public health, the community, clinics and industry.
The government has introduced amendments to the Occupational Health
and Safety Act (OHSA) that were hidden in the budget bill which are
deeply disturbing because they will undermine enforcement and
inspections that keep Ontario's workers and workplaces safe. The Ontario
Nurses' Association is requesting that the government withdraw Schedule
16 amendments and to consult thoroughly with unions, communities and
the public before tabling any amendments to Ontario's occupational
health and safety laws. Take action NOW: Email the Premier, the Ministers of Finance, Labour
and Health and Long-Term Care and your provincial representative to tell
them that you support the withdrawal of Schedule 16.
TORONTO – Ontario Nurses’ Association First Vice-President Vicki McKenna, RN, says she is “beyond angry, frustrated and appalled” at the weekend beating of a registered nurse working to provide care at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) here in Toronto.
Early Sunday morning, the registered nurse (RN) was assaulted as she exited a room, punched in the face and then dragged into a locked utility room, where the male patient repeatedly kicked the nurse in the head.
“Our member might have been killed, but for the fact that another staff person witnessed the attack and called for assistance,” says McKenna. “The RN suffered critical injuries and her sight may be permanently affected. This was yet another very serious event in a long line of workplace violence incidents at CAMH, yet this employer continues to display its laissez-fair attitude to workplace safety and its obligation to protect staff.”
In addition to its failure to keep workers safe, CAMH also failed to notify the Ministry of Labour immediately, as is required under the law. McKenna says there is absolutely no excuse for this oversight, especially with the organization’s history of being charged with workplace safety infractions by the Ministry multiple times.
“CAMH is particularly notorious for its delays in taking action to make this workplace safer,” she said. “CAMH needs to address staffing levels to improve safety and come to the table and participate in actions to improve safety for the staff. We cannot continue to sit back and wait for an RN to be murdered before this employer is forced to take action.”
McKenna suggests that rather than simply fining the institution, the Ministry of Labour should hold senior leaders who are responsible for keeping staff safe at CAMH personally accountable for these incidents. She also notes that the Ministry of Labour has failed to include nurses in its presumption of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder legislation, and this incident illustrates that this oversight is reprehensible.
ONA is the union representing 62,000 registered nurses and allied health professionals, as well as more than 14,000 nursing student affiliates, providing care in hospitals, long-term care facilities, public health, the community, clinics and industry.
Published on: October 24, 2016 | Last Updated: October 24, 2016 7:00 AM EDT
Nurse tending to patient in intensive care. Photo by Getty Images.Martin Barraud / Getty Images
Re: Forced to leave town for work, nurses return to jobs in Detroit, by Brian Cross, Oct. 18.
It is shameful that highly educated and skilled nurses such as Steve
and Colleen Bacon are being forced to leave the province for full-time
work in Detroit.
Their story is all-too-common these days. As the elected first
vice-president of the Ontario Nurses’ Association, I know that our
invaluable registered nurses are being poached by other jurisdictions as
RN cuts continue in Ontario.
New RN graduates are being left with large student debt and no
full-time employment prospects in Ontario, and it’s only natural that
they leave to find work environments with employers who value them and
the quality patient care they provide.
Southwestern Ontario has seen a raft of RN cuts recently — Bluewater
Health in Sarnia cut 45 full-time RN positions and 21 part-time RN
positions and Windsor Regional Hospital has cut a total of 169 RN
positions.
It’s shameful that inadequate hospital funding and short-sighted
hospital decisions are trimming the front lines to balance the bottom
line. I sincerely hope that every Ontario-educated RN will soon be able
to use their skills for the benefit of their own community’s patients
soon.
Both our nurses and our patients deserve no less. VICKI McKENNA, RN, Ontario Nurses’ Association, Toronto
On
Wednesday, Parliament voted to adopt Bill C-4, a government bill that
repeals the previous Conservative government’s controversial anti-union
bills C-377 and C-525.
Earlier this year, Labour Minister MaryAnn Mihychuk made good on the Liberals’ election promise to repeal the bills.
“We
are pleased that the government has done the right thing and overturned
bills C-377 and C-525 and we are grateful to Minister Mihychuk for her
leadership in repealing this legislation and restoring the balance in
Canadian labour relations,” said CLC President Hassan Yussuff.
The
bills C-377 and C-525 were ideologically-motivated and designed by the
former Conservative government to undermine the ability of unions to
advocate for workers and to make it more difficult for Canadians in
federally regulated workplaces to join a union, respectively.
“Canadian
unions work hard to uphold values like fairness by protecting jobs,
promoting health and safety in the workplace, and advocating on behalf
of all Canadian workers. These bills were designed to interfere with
that work,” said Yussuff.
