Atlantic nurses gear up to fight privatization of health care
Atlantic nurses brought back their labour school this week in Charlottetown. Pauline Worsfold, RN, outgoing chair of the Canadian Health Coalition, and I organized a session on public health care vs. private health care for first time participants.
The session began with an overview of the Canadian Health Coalition and our strategic priorities and why stopping privatization of health care is important. Nurses enjoyed this video debunking the myth that privatization reduces waiting lines –
The session moved on to discussing the problem of agency nurses (or travel nurses) and how provinces turned to private firms during the COVID-19 pandemic to hire nurses. Just last week, New Brunswick’s Auditor General criticized the Vitalité health authority for its $123 million in travel-nurse contract with Canadian Health Labs and for refusing to disclose important information about the agreements.
After doing a power-mapping exercise that identified allies and opponents and points of influence, nurses came up with their personal political action plan that included identifying goals, strategies and tactics for protecting public health care. They then wrote a letter to themselves, committing themselves to an action for public health care, that we plan to mail to them in a month. Nurses wrote about taking action on workplace violence, pharmacare and agency nurses.
Another session focused on pharmacare. Nurses shared their stories of how no coverage of diabetes medication was affecting their patients and wanted to know when their patients could have coverage. Timelines are found in the Pharmacare Act but it also depends on when pharmacare legislation passes in Senate.
Nurses then shared their stories of why pharmacare for all is important with us and on their social media.
About 300 nurses attended the Eastern Labour School, organized by the PEI Nurses Union, Nova Scotia Nurses Union, New Brunswick Nurses Union and the Registered Nurses of Newfoundland and Labrador, at the University of Prince Edward Island.
Tracy Glynn is the National Director of Projects and Operations for the Canadian Health Coalition
