To the Editor,
Rather than take responsibility for chronic nursing understaffing, the B.C government is attempting to coerce nurses to take flu shots.
Is that so if a flu epidemic breaks out in hospitals, government officials can blame it on nurses who neglected taking the shot? That’s sick.
And what makes nurses more sick is chronic nursing shortages meaning nurses are repeatedly asked to work overtime and over-extend themselves to reduce waiting times for patients.
Over the past 20-plus years in B.C the nursing force has steadily declined but health-care management by so-called “authorities” has burgeoned by leaps and bounds.
Some of the high wages, perks, benefits, and pension monies could hire nurses.
It’s time to put the nursing-to-patient ratio in B.C on a weight-gain protocol and give health-care bureaucracy a high colonic.
Liz Stonard,
Port Alberni
