Nurses deliver yet another wake-up call

Opinion

We are reaching the stage at which one is inclined to wonder: how many wake-up calls are necessary before an awakened state arrives and productive movement ensues?

The latest sounding of an alarm was the decision by the Manitoba Nurses Union to have its members vote on whether to “grey list” the province’s largest hospital, Winnipeg’s Health Sciences Centre. The term essentially indicates nurses consider HSC too dangerous a place in which to work, and includes a provision wherein the union discourages its members from seeking or accepting employment there until safety concerns are addressed.

That the MNU felt compelled to propose a vote is a startling indictment of working conditions in and around HSC. That its members voted 94 per cent in favour of grey listing is a statement that is impossible for the provincial government or the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority to ignore.

Hospital staff have been sounding the alarm for years about safety issues — both within the hospital and in its surrounding area, while workers are navigating their way to and from their shifts — and concerns have intensified of late after a string of incidents, including five sexual assaults (two involving nurses), in early July.

The assaults were a wake-up call, many observers declared. The proposed grey-listing vote was a wake-up call. The overwhelming result was a wake-up call.

Are we awake yet?

According to the MNU’s president, while the listing does not affect the commitment to work of the roughly 3,000 nurses currently employed at HSC, this is about nurses taking a stand and the institution living up to its duty to protect staff.

“The employer now has a clear opportunity to meet the reasonable conditions set by nurses,” Darlene Jackson said in an Aug. 8 statement. “The decision to lift the grey list rests entirely in their hands. Nurses will no longer accept empty promises or inaction that puts their safety at risk.”

The nurses union is calling for stricter control of access points into HSC, including the requirement for swipe cards to access hospital tunnels and the creation of an early-warning system to alert staff and patients about security incidents, as well as the creation of a formal process for post-incident debriefs and a formal review of security training and policies within 30 days.

Shared Health, the government department that oversees health care, issued a statement from its interim president and CEO saying the health authority takes the grey-listing vote very seriously. In the statement, Dr. Chris Christodoulou outlined several safety-enhancement measures that have been undertaken in recent years, and committed to “listening, learning, and continuing to take meaningful steps to support a safer environment for everyone, including addressing the recommendations by the MNU.”

Meetings involving the health authority, unions, government officials and police have taken place, with the focus no doubt on more effectively addressing the myriad physical, logistical and socio-economic challenges that contribute to the unsafe environment HSC has become.

What remains to be seen, however, is the magnitude and swiftness of corrective actions that will follow the discussions this time around. A grey-listing vote had been under consideration by the MNU since 2020, and the eventual decision to hold it was propelled in large part by “collective frustration” experienced by nurses during years of perceived inadequate response.

One of two things usually happens when an alarm clock sounds: an actual awakening followed by a quick transition from lethargy to action, or a brief rise to consciousness followed by a tap on the snooze button and a return to slumber.

One hopes, for the sake of HSC’s nurses and patients, this turns out to be the former.