Former Canadian Health Coalition chair honoured with Bread & Roses Award
The United Nurses of Alberta have honoured former Canadian Health Coalition Chair Pauline Worsfold, RN, with the 2024 UNA Bread & Roses Award at the union’s Annual General Meeting on October 24.
Worsfold is long-time registered nurse working in the post-anesthetic recovery room at a Edmonton hospital. She is also a union activist, first acting as a ward representative with the Staff Nurses’ Association of Alberta at the Edmonton’s University of Alberta Hospital in 1981.
Besides serving as the chairperson of the Canadian Health Coalition for a decade, she served as Secretary-Treasurer of the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions (CFNU), a position she was first elected to hold in 1999 and held until January 2023.
Pauline has received many awards for her exemplary contributions to her community and union, including the Queen Platinum Jubilee Medal in 2022.
UNA President Heather Smith noted several of Pauline’s accomplishments, including her long involvement in championing national pharmacare.
On winning pharmacare, Worsfold said, “It was easy to meet with MPs on Canadian Health Coalition issues because as a front line working registered nurse, I saw what was happening in the health care system first hand. Patients were not having their needs met in a timely manner; some were cutting medications in half to make them last longer and ending up in emergency or worse, in surgery.”
In her award acceptance speech, Worsfold told Alberta’s nurses: “I share this award with all of you … You who are doing the work, day in, day out, in the locals, big and small, near and far.”
She added: “What fun we had! What challenges we were able to mount. These individuals shaped who I am as an activist, unionist, and a feminist. To them I say, thank you.”
Worsfold reminded the nurses to take time to celebrate the wins: “We fight for bread, to feed our families, and we fight for roses to nourish our souls. Take the time to celebrate your wins, big and small, before you move on to the next challenge, and the one after that. Because we must believe, the work we do today and tomorrow will ensure the world is a better place.”
“Bread and Roses” is a political slogan and poem/song, originating from a speech given by American women’s suffrage activist Helen Todd. The poem by James Oppenheim was first published in The American Magazine in 1911. The slogan pairs the demand for bread and roses, appealing for both fair wages and dignified conditions.
