PEINU National Voice

PEINU is a member of the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions (CFNU).

• CFNU is very active in promoting social welfare issues such as a national pharmacare program, saving medicare, and working towards a national HealthHuman Resource strategy. 

• CFNU’s core purpose is to be a pro-active, unifying national voice for quality health care and the socio-economic welfare of nurses and others.
   
• CFNU represents 155,000 nurses. The national President is Linda Silas (former NBNU president/member).
   
• CFNU is a member of the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC), which represents 3 million members nationwide.

Health Ministers Meeting (St. John’s, NL – September 2010)

On September 12-14 I attended the Health Ministers (HM) meeting in St. John’s, NFLD and Labrador. CFNU president, Linda Silas and other provincial Union Nursing leaders including myself, and CNA CEO, Rachel Bard, met with a few of the HM on the eve of September 12th. At this meeting, Linda Silas had opening remarks and talked about the Think Tank strategies and how we do not want to repeat the 1990s. Rachel Bard spoke on how to promote nursing and how we can bring solutions to help the issues of today. She also talked about the 2009 CNA document on Tested Solution. She told the HM that the Federal Government supports the report and that we need to work collectively to make this report reality and help stop the shortage of nurses.

Each of the Provincial presidents was given 1of 5 directions to speak on. We had a maximum of three minutes. The five direction of the Think Tank can be found on the CFNU website, www.cfnu.ca.

After the presentations were completed we had a round table discussion and question/answer period. Interesting to note that Alberta has only 38% RNs working full time.  Heather Smith, Alberta’s Union leader, says her members struggle with poor work environment, and increased workload with no time off. Even though NLNU Union leader Debbie Forward was quick to say she had 74% RNs working full time - they also struggle with workload and poor work environment. Over the summer months she had received news that there were RNs doing 24 hr shifts. Saskatchewan (SUN) has over 400 vacancies; with approximately 800 nurses being recently hired and still their overtime hours are outrageous.

We closed by saying if the policy makers would listen to the advice of nurses, they would save money and create safer environments for patients and nurses. We know investing in nurses is investing in a healthier Canada and we urged the health ministers to recognize the findings of the report.

CFNU published, and have released, a new report called Experts and Evidence: Opportunities in Nursing. This report can be found online at www.nursesunions.ca.

Mona O'Shea, RN
President, PEINU

And our voice just keeps getting stronger and stronger!