Safe staffing saves lives, and unions fight for safe staffing, UNA President Heather Smith tells crowd of 850 at AGM opening

United Nurses of Alberta President Heather Smith reminded 850 members of the union and others at the opening of UNA’s 37^th annual general meeting this morning in Edmonton that “safe staffing saves,” the theme of UNA’s 2014 AGM.

“Safe staffing saves lives,” Smith told the gathering of Registered Nurses and Registered Psychiatric Nurses from locals throughout the province. “The lives of patients, residents and clients, and also the lives – the wellbeing – of care providers.”

“Unsafe staffing is the deadly force against which we fight each and every hour of each and every day,” she said.

This is truer than ever before, Smith noted, in an age of global epidemics of deadly diseases such as Ebola. “It has been nurses’ unions – at the provincial and national level – that have pushed governments and employers to adopt more stringent protocols. To act, not wait.”

However, Smith warned delegates, health care managers don’t necessarily see the world the same way, quoting a senior manager at a private long-term care provision corporation who claimed, “staffing is a red herring.”

“I was not the only person who was shocked by his statement,” Smith recalled. “The correlation between patient safety and appropriate staffing, the right the skill mix and the right number is a ‘no brainer.’ How can you expect safe outcomes in an unsafe environment? The two are inextricably linked.”

Using the metaphor of comic book language, Smith noted that nurses “may not have super powers, but we are not defenseless. …

“Our weapons are in our Collective Agreements – PRC, OH&S and grievances. And the champions, our ‘super heroes,’ are the members of UNA. The front-line staff members and Local Executives, ably assisted by UNA staff, who don't just accept that ‘this is the way it is.’”

UNA also has many friends, she said, groups like the Alberta Federation of Labour, the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions, the Canadian Labour Congress, social advocates like Friends of Medicare, Public Interest Alberta, the Parkland Institute, the Council of Canadians and the Canadian Health Coalition, and other health care unions such as HSAA, CUPE and AUPE.

She said: “Our goals are aligned – the highest level of good quality health care.”

In the past 12 months, Smith said, our “superheroes” filed 2,237 professional responsibility concerns and 630 grievances. Occupational Health and Safety challenges reached new heights.

In addition, public sector union members successfully fought off an attack on their pensions and their collective bargaining rights by the government led by the former premier. “We saw regressive pension legislation first set aside, and then withdrawn. We still hope Bill 45 may yet be repealed.”

And UNA, of course, successfully negotiated a fair collective agreement after more than a year of difficult bargaining.

But what the future holds is hard to predict, she said. This makes it more important than ever that nurses are active in their union and the broader movements it supports.

“The challenge for UNA, and all unions, is to make clear the relevance of the union, in the workplace and in society, to our members, and to the public,” she said. “Why we formed a union and what we have accomplished for nurses, patients and the public is no small feat.”

“We started the year with one premier,” she noted, “had another briefly, and ended the year with a third. We started with one CEO of Alberta Health Services and ended with another. The Ministers of Health and Finance changed.” Not to mention the senior executives of Alberta Health Services.

“We can only speculate about how these changes will affect health service delivery, affect us,” she said.

In the year ahead, “we have negotiations to complete at long-term care and other smaller employers across the province,” and may also see important elections in Alberta and Canada, she said, thanking the union’s Executive Officers, Executive Board, Local leaders, staff and senior managers for their support 

Smith encouraged members to continue to wear white at work to help the public understand “the implications for them and their loved ones when they do not see a white uniform.”

“I want a Canada where the professional judgment of nurses in recognized and acted upon” Smith concluded. “We need to demand patient safety every day of every week! Canadians deserve safe staffing, because safe staffing saves lives!” 

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