August 15 2008
Liepert keeps tight control
Liberal MLA Hugh MacDonald recently gave media a leaked Memorandum showing that Health and Wellness Minister Ron Liepert kept direct control over the new Alberta Health Services Board. The wording couldn’t be more specific: “The Board shall comply with all directions of the Minister.”
MacDonald raised concerns that the structure gives Liepert complete power to turn more and more health services into for-profit health businesses. “What that means to Albertans is more private health care and less public health care.”
The Memorandum of Understanding is explicit: the Health and Wellness Minister may give any direction to the Board, including “priorities and guidelines”, “clinical and operating standards”, and “a provincial service delivery plan”.
Cease and Desist order for Liepert
Friends of Medicare has launched a petition calling on the Health Minister to cease and desist from further dismantling of our public health care structure. The petition calls on the government to disclose full details of any Health and Wellness plan for the health system. Friends of Medicare says Mr. Liepert has announced significant changes without making public any overall plan or blueprint for the changes. “Mr. Liepert must not undertake any new expansion of for-profit business delivery of health care services.” More info and a copy of the petition is available on the Friends of Medicare website at: www.friendsofmedicare.ab.ca.
The Annual Rainbow Gala announces “The Road to AHHHHs”
This year UNA is presenting: “The Road to AHHHHs” as the theme for the 10th Annual Rainbow Gala in support of the Rainbow Society of Alberta. The event at the Fantasyland Hotel in Edmonton always is an elegant and exciting fine time. This year it is on Thursday October 9. Doors open- 5:30 pm Dinner- 6:30 pm with a Silent Auction and Fashion Show.
Tickets are $60 each or a table of 10 for $540. To order tickets call 780 469-3306.
UNA awarding seven scholarships to first year nursing students
This year UNA will be awarding seven Nursing Scholarships to assist students in their first year of an accredited nursing program in Alberta. The Scholarships are $750.00 each. The students must be related to a UNA member in good standing, complete a short essay and submit an endorsement (from an unrelated individual) to be eligible for the award.
AUPE reaches contract for LPNs
A tentative agreement was signed June 27 between the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees and HBA Services on a four-year contract for more than 13,000 Auxiliary Nursing Care employees in all nine health regions.
The LPNs get a general pay increase of 5 per cent in the first year, 5 per cent in the second year, and 4.5 per cent or the Alberta Average Weekly Earnings (whichever is higher) in each of the third and fourth years.
In addition, more than 90 per cent of the employees in the bargaining unit will receive a market adjustment of 10 per cent in the first year of the agreement, for a total first-year pay increase of 15 per cent. Some groups of employees will receive larger market adjustments, AUPE says.
Doctors still talking for-profit health care
The Canadian Medical Association (CMA) of the country’s doctors is discussing more private health care at its annual meeting to be held in Montreal August 17-20. Leadership of the CMA will pass from Dr. Brian Day, a vocal proponent of privatization and owner of a private clinic, to Dr. Robert Ouellet, another physician who owns a network of private clinics. The CMA will be hosting a session on “patient-focused funding”. This funding formula, also known as ‘payment by results’ and ‘volume-based funding’, is a ruse for privatization. In most countries where it’s been introduced, and certainly in Canada, it comes with competition and commercialization, forcing hospitals to compete for patients and the public dollars they will bring with them.
CBC story says new nurses leaving
CBC Radio in Alberta recently ran a story quoting UNA on the nursing shortage. CBC quoted UNA Secretary-Treasurer Karen Craik, who said she gets a lot of calls from frustrated nurses. “The shortage of nurses in Alberta will only worsen as many young RNs quit their jobs complaining of overwork,” Karen told CBC.
The Alberta government’s own reports are that up to 30% of new graduates leave within five years.
“A disturbing thing with younger nurses is that because of the workload, and just other nurses being too busy to do actual mentoring, we are seeing high rates of nurses just saying after a couple of years, ‘I can’t deal with this.’ So, they leave the profession altogether,” Karen Craik said.
The story also quoted Lorraine Watson, Associate Dean in the Faculty of Nursing at the University of Calgary who said: “We’re definitely aware the nursing environment these days is not ideal because it’s such an acute, complex working arena.”
A Swedish neurosurgeon at a Stockholm hospital says
A Swedish nurse could lose her job after posting photos of brain surgery and a back operation on Facebook. Although the patients could not even be identified in the photos, the chief of neurosurgery at Karolinska University Hospital says putting up the 14 photos violated the hospital’s ethical code. Svensson said the nurse was devastated at the consequences of her actions.
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