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O.R. Nurses Leaving Hospitals for Work in Dartmouth Private Clinic |
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Written by NDP News Release
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Thursday, 15 December 2005 |
NDP Health Critic Dave Wilson is calling on the Minister of Health, Angus MacIsaac, to address the reasons that nurses are leaving the public health care system to work at a private surgical clinic in Dartmouth.
"I am not questioning the right of any professional to go to where the pay may be better and the working conditions more acceptable," says Wilson. "What I am questioning is the Minister's refusal to acknowledge that the stress of working
'full-time casual' and relentless on-call hours is doing to nurses in our hospitals."
" I am asking the Minister to show us what his Department is doing to retain nursing staff. We can't afford to lose our healthcare professionals like this."
"That many may be leaving the system is a clear a message as this Minister is going to get that something is radically wrong with working conditions in our hospitals."
Yesterday officials at the Colchester Regional Hospital confirmed that four of its operating room nurses had resigned to take positions at the East Coast Medicenter, and that replacing these nurses represented a challenge for the District Health Authority.
"How many more nurses are we going to lose as private clinics expand?" asks Wilson. "We have arrived the cross-roads without a plan."
"Until the Department of Health faces up to reality, there is nothing to stop private clinics from leeching resources, our personnel, and funding out of the public system." Where are our regulations on private clinics, where is the strategy for incentives to make sure more nurses don't leave the hospitals?"
"Whatever your view of private clinics, I am sure that we all agree that they cannot be allowed to erode the quality of the accessible healthcare Canadians rely on," Wilson says.
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