Nurses will head to Port Alberni on Wednesday to protest a workflow redesign they argue is bad for nurses and patients.
Nurses from the central and north Island are headed for Port Alberni where the Vancouver Island Health Authority will hold a board meeting at 1:45 p.m. at the Hospitality Inn.
The nurses are converging on the meeting “to demand a halt to a plan to replace licensed and registered nursing professionals with unlicensed care aides on key hospital units,” according to the B.C. Nurses’ Union.
Specifically, the BCNU is calling on VIHA to halt the redesign and launch an independent review before going ahead.
The health authority wants to test the redesign at Nanaimo Regional General Hospital in the hopes of rolling out the initiative at Royal Jubilee and Victoria General hospitals, then moving it to smaller hospitals throughout the island, according to BCNU spokesperson Art Moses.
Jo Salken, the BCNU’s Pacific Rim chairwoman, said in a statement that while care aides are a great addition, the health authority should not use them to replace the skills and knowledge of licensed and registered nurses.
“This is all about VIHA cutting budgets, not improving patient care,” Salken said. “The evidence shows that reducing the number of professional nurses at the bedside leads to worse patient outcomes. VIHA must stop this plan and organize an independent review before it can go ahead.”
VIHA argues it has been reviewing its care delivery model for years and says it has been clear that there would be changes made to the different needs of patients.
The health authority says it has identified gaps in care as well as overlaps in the role of care providers. A team approach is needed so that each professional can focus on the kind of care they are most qualified to perform, it says.
For example, the changes mean registered nurses will be better able to use their higher level of training to perform tasks such as care planning and patient/family communication while care aides could support more patients with tasks such as bathing, VIHA says.
VIHA says no layoffs would result from the changes, and notes there is a shortage of trained health care professionals in the health authority.
“Nanaimo Regional General Hospital has a high vacancy rate for registered nurses in several different areas, and we expect the implementation of Patient Care Model, and the associated rotation changes, will in fact help stabilize staffing at this site,” VIHA said Tuesday.
