About two hundred nurses gathered from all over the province to the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia, protesting a crumbling health care system and demanding more nurses to reinforce a dangerously overstretched workforce.

BC Nurses' Union Protest @ Victoria: 2022/05/10 12:08:51

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“Fix the nursing shortage”, “Patient safety = more nurses”, “Patients and nurses deserve better”, “Respect nurses”, “Health care is in crisis”, “Help BC nurses”; a pretty straightforward message requiring a similarly straightforward solution.

‘Crumbling’ does not strike me as hyperbole here, nor is ‘dangerously overstretched’. Listening to the speeches would make one realise just how badly frontline workers are having it right now. We’ve heard of such staffing shortages that nurses may have to operate at less than half of recommended numbers, for multiple shifts in a row, having to run around taking care of sometimes dozens of high-need patients at once. This is neither safe for the patients nor the health care professionals.

Speaker time, and a lot of media attention.

What’s more, the speakers stressed the fact that the pandemic only exacerbated an already acute chronic shortage. A system operating beyond capacity in normal circumstances is bound to collapse when a crisis occurs. No wonder so many nurses are leaving the profession; the government has ignored them for far too long, with the consequences that we know.

A BC nurses’ union banner with a simple demand: “Respect nurses”.

Combine this with a severe shortage of family doctors and an acute surgery backlog, and the result is indeed a crumbling health care system, disintegrating out of sheer neglect.

The nurses left the steps of the Legislative Assembly not demanding more money, but rather numbers and respect. I say they deserve both, and so do patients.