BURNABY – Meena Brisard, spokesperson for the Hospital Employees' Union, has released the following statement regarding the Ministry of Health's announcement today about new nurse staffing and rural health care worker retention incentive programs:
"The government’s announcements today regarding next steps in moving forward with a new staffing model for nurses and the expansion of the rural incentive programs to retain and attract health care workers will further strengthen B.C.’s health care system.
"We urge the government to extend both these measures to include more members of the health care team so that we can improve working and caring conditions across health care.
"In addition to ensuring we have appropriate levels of nursing staff in our hospitals and long-term care homes, we ask government to develop similar staffing models for care aides and other members of the care team to further increase the hours of care per resident or patient per day.
"Plus, while the expanded incentives program for rural communities will help improve attraction and retention of health care workers, we recommend the government also make fundamental reforms to long-term care to address the concerns we are hearing from our members and the residents they care for. Specifically, we ask that the government implement its 2020 election promise to restore the standard wages, benefits and working conditions that had been dismantled by the previous BC Liberal government.
"Only by expanding these investments in improving working and caring conditions across health care can we better ensure all British Columbians have access to high quality care in the future."