Some of the main issues discussed during the conference were safety in the workplace and the mental health of nurses. Photo: Lauryn Mackenzie / CHLY 101.7fm

Over 250 nurses from around the Vancouver Island area rallied in downtown Nanaimo outside the Vancouver Island Conference Centre following a local union conference.

The BC Nurses’ Union (BCNU) will be heading to the negotiation table as their current collective agreement with the provincial government expires on March 31 of this year. Ahead of renegotiations, the union is holding conferences around the province to hear from nurses about their top priorities.

The conference downtown Nanaimo hosted nurses primarily from the Pacific Rim and South Island health regions. Nurses came together for two days to discuss key issues happening in their workplaces.

Some of the main issues discussed during the conference were safety in the workplace and the mental health of nurses.

At the end of the conference on Friday, January 10th, attendees filled the sidewalks of Terminal Avenue after marching down Commercial Street.

President of BCNU Adriane Gear spoke to the crowd saying she has heard the frustration and challenges nurses are facing.

“It's hard for me to understand how your health employer, Island Health, continues to miss the mark when it comes to meeting the needs of the people here on Vancouver Island,” she said.

She said that ahead of contract negotiations, maintaining their benefits and ensuring safe working environments are their top priorities. She said this comes as burnout and other mental health issues are on the rise and nurses working in unsafe and toxic workplace environments are impacting nurses more and more.

Concerns about nurses facing verbal or physical violence at work have become a high risk, and as the toxic drug crisis continues, concerns about nurses being exposed to substances continue to rise.

Currently in Nanaimo, a group of healthcare professionals continue to open an unsanctioned pop-up overdose prevention site across the street from the Nanaimo Regional General Hospital in hopes of lowering the risk of workers at the hospital being exposed to substances.

Gear said she has seen new nurses who were once enthusiastic about becoming nurses considering leaving the profession after realizing the role is drastically different than they thought.

“You know, this week, I've heard stories of nurses that have left, and they're now working at Starbucks, they're working running gyms, they're working selling clothing,” she said. “Not that these aren't important jobs, but we need nurses to stay in nursing.”

After the rally, CHLY spoke with Gear inside the conference centre lobby.

She said that a lot of the concerns around violence in the workplace can be correlated to current challenges in staffing as there are not enough nurses.

She said it is important to look at new minimum nurse-to-patient ratios. This is something Gear said seems hopeful as they have already negotiated the current staffing requirement for one nurse to every four patients in medical-surgical units 24/7. British Columbia was the first province in Canada to establish minimum nurse-to-patient ratios.

Gear said they are working to better conditions for all nurses as they see new nurses entering the field. She said she is hearing that new nurses are feeling overwhelmed.

“The complexity of patients has increased, and due to the staffing challenges, unfortunately, sometimes newer nurses feel unsupported,” she said. “So what those nurses need to hear now is that we're working really hard to make that better and that if I had to do it over again, I would still become a nurse. I really do believe it's one of the best professions.”

She said that new nurses and those going to school to become nurses, should get involved with the BC Nurses’ Union and understand some of the resources and support that are available.

“While we're struggling right now, it is just a moment in time, and once we get ratios implemented, once we have enough nurses here, I think the nursing profession is still a very good choice, and we need all the new grads to stay here and to take jobs,” she said.

Teri Forester is a regional council member for the BC Nurses’ Union and works with student nurses studying to become nurses.

She shared with CHLY some of the concerns she has been hearing from student nurses.

“A lot of nurses are experiencing unsafe situations at work for a variety of reasons, but they're being told that that's normal and that's what they signed up for, and unsafe workplaces is not something any nurse should have to be experiencing or working through,” Forester said.

She said as exposures to substances are becoming more of a risk for student nurses, students have become more concerned about being exposed

“I'm hearing a lot of concerns about substance use in the hospitals and how they're exposed, and questions of if they're on clinical versus on in a position as employed student nurses, whether or not they are going to be covered if something happens they should be and would be covered,” Forester said.

While student nurses are covered for their practicums for situations such as getting exposed to a substance, Forester said, students are still worried about how exposure could affect the rest of their lives.

“Because Students aren’t paid so if they experience a workplace injury while they're in clinical or while they're there and they have to miss work at their other job, are they going to be covered with their finances?” Forester said. “If they have to miss school, is that going to be understood by the school as a valid reason to miss classes.”

Forester estimates that around 40 per cent of new grads don't remain in the profession within five years of graduating.

“We need to find better ways to support our new grads and our students as well as our nurses, to make sure that we're keeping people safely working in the profession that they've chosen to spend a fair bit of money and time studying to be successful in,” Forester said.

She said she thinks health authorities need to be pretty strict with their expectations for keeping people safe.

“It doesn't matter who you are if you come into the healthcare system to help as a nurse, a nursing student, an allied health professional, there should be zero tolerance for situations that are placing people at risk,” she said. “The employer really needs to start doing a lot more to ensure that the people that are there to support all the different populations, solutions are found to keep them safe no matter what.”

BCNU’s regional bargaining conferences will continue across the province in advance of their collective agreement expiring on March 31.

Funding Note: This story was produced with funding support from the Local Journalism Initiative, administered by the Community Radio Fund of Canada.