Karen Mackenzie
Northern News Services
Published Monday, November 19, 2007

NUNAVUT - The government's latest strategy to reduce staff shortages in the nursing field rings hollow with local nurses.

Unveiled Nov. 9, the day after the recent sitting of the legislative assembly, it aims to reduce the nursing vacancy rate from its current high of 30 to 40 per cent to 15 to 20 per cent over the next five years.

But Cheryl Young, head of the nurses' local of the Nunavut Employees Union, said the plan lacks any concrete fixes to improve the work environment for the front line workers in the territory right now.

"They've read out a document to us that has nothing in it to give anybody hope. So basically, what you're looking at is a future of agency nurses," Young said. "I heard three words over and over: reviewing, consulting and policy. When you have these three words in anything, you know they haven't got a clue what they're doing."

The nursing recruitment and retention strategy proposes the creation of a relief nursing pool of 12 new nursing positions, four each in Cambridge Bay, Iqaluit and Rankin Inlet, to do relief work throughout their respective regions.

The government would set maximum rates for the cost of agency nurses, and these would be brought in line with salaries for Nunavut-based nurses.

The need for staff housing - which has been a major concern for local nurses - was only briefly addressed in the strategy. According to Minister of Health and Social Services Leona Aglukkaq, the Government of Nunavut is in the process of reviewing staff housing in general.

In keeping with the government's commitment to Article 23 of the land claims agreement, the strategy placed an emphasis on the training and retention of Inuit nurses.

The Nunavut nursing program would be expanded to include training in Cambridge Bay and Rankin Inlet, and graduates are guaranteed employment.

So far, 13 nurses have graduated from the Nunavut nursing program, seven of them Inuit.

The nursing recruitment and retention strategy suffered a major setback last June, when members of the legislative assembly turned down Aglukkaq's request for $1.5 million to kick start the process of reducing vacancies.

At that time, the strategy wasn't yet ready to be tabled and MLAs balked at providing funding until it was completed.

"We have to now deal with the whole budget cycle, and that will be in March," Aglukkaq said. "It would have been nice to see some funding in June, we could have been able to address these initiatives immediately. Some we can and some we can't and it was a big setback in that way in that we didn't get the support of the regular members in that way."

Without the document being tabled at the most recent sitting - Aglukkaq had planned to do so on Nov. 9, but the session ended one day earlier - members were not able to question the details of funding this time around, either.

Aglukkaq stressed that the strategy is a "living document," and that more of the issues such as salaries must be addressed through the collective bargaining process, which should begin in the first week of December.

"What they've given us is all they can give us. It respects the collective bargaining process, which is good," said Doug Workman, head of the Nunavut Employees Union. "Until we really see the details, which we will when we negotiate next ... well, words are nice but I've heard words before. We want to be hopeful."

Tensions between local nurses and bureaucrats were flamed further by a scheduling mishap on the part of a senior bureaucrat with the Department of Health and Social Services.

The senior bureaucrat called a meeting with the nurses to present the strategy on Nov. 11 at 11 a.m. - a conflict with traditional Remembrance Day ceremonies.

Although he changed the time to 11:30 a.m., it meant most of the nurses - a number of whom have partners in the RCMP or the military - missed the local events.

"It was short notice, and he didn't even acknowledge the nurses in the communities," Young said. "He organized a separate phone conference, but half of them didn't even find out about it."