An Award In Nursing Leadership? What About The Stressed-Out Nurses?

A Commentary by Doug Draper

As if the antics of the Niagara Health System over the past decade haven’t already put our heads through, here is another mental twister for you.

Niagara Health System interum CEO Sue Matthews is lavished by Ontario Hospital Associaion with 'excellence' award for nursing leadership.

Try to wrap a rational mind around this. A mere two days after a public survey was released this November 9, confirming that a broad cross section of Niagara residents have little or no trust or confidence in the way the NHS is running a majority of the hospital services in this region, we learn that the NHS’s interim president and CEO Sue Matthews was off to Toronto to receive an “Award of Excellence in Nursing Leadership.” That same day – December 11, Lorretta Tirabassi-Olinski, president of Ontario Nurses Association Local 26 representing nurses working for the NHS, released an open letter charging that, in the ONA local’s view, a “crisis situation” has been reached as far as workload and staffing at NHS hospital sites.

“No one at the Niagara Health System can say they have been unaware of the issues related to poor staffing, the inability for staff to get a day off work even to attend education sessions and subsequently less than adequate resources available to provide optimal care to their patients,” said Tirabassi-Olinski in her letter.

“Nurses are often called at home several times a day on their days off to come in and work overtime shifts so that their peers get some relief, knowing that their peers will come in for them when they too need extra staff to help with the demand to provide optimal patient care. Often times they are still faced with poor staffing, inadequate resources and support services that close up shop at 4 p.m. Monday to Friday.”

Meanwhile, back in the alternative universe the hospital system’s administrators have chosen to operate in for most of the last 10 years, the NHS was celebrating the nursing leadership award presented to Matthews by the Ontario Hospital Association.

As for Tirabassi-Olinski and the concern she expressed in her November 11 letter that the nurses she represents may be “personally persecuted in the press and public” for what citizens feel has gone wrong at NHS hospital sites, she should take some consolation from that public survey released on the NHS a few days earlier. That survey, conducted by communications expert Terry Flynn and company, clearly stated that many Niagara residents continue to have respect for the front-line employees, including nurses. Regardless of the Ontario Hospital Association’s reasons for presenting Matthews with an award for excellence,  it is the administration many members of the public distrust.

Below is the full contents of Loretta Tirabassi-Olinski’s letter on behalf of NHS nurses.

As the President of the Ontario Nurses Association (ONA) Local 26 and as a staff member of the former Hotel Dieu and now the Niagara Health System for a total 28 years, I feel compelled to clarify the issues that face the staff every day at the emergency department at the Niagara Falls Site of the system.

ONA and the nurses at the Niagara Health System themselves have been well aware of the increasing complexity and volumes facing their units every day and night. These dedicated nurses have been documenting this and coming to meetings with management for the past several years in order to try to work towards solutions, but to no avail. No one at the Niagara Health System can say they have been unaware of the issues related to poor staffing, the inability for staff to get a day off work even to attend education sessions and subsequently less than adequate resources available to provide optimal care to their patients.

Nurses are often called at home several times a day on their days off to come in and work overtime shifts so that their peers get some relief, knowing that their peers will come in for them when they too need extra staff to help with the demand to provide optimal patient care. Often times they are still faced with poor staffing, inadequate resources and support services that close up shop at 4 p.m. Monday to Friday.

It is for this reason that the Ontario Nurses Association has, once again, requested the aid of an ‘Independent Assessment Committee’ to come in and help find solutions to the problem as they did in the St. Catharines General Site Emergency and Medical Units.

This is a very expensive and time consuming review for both the Niagara Health System as well as the union but we cannot ignore the core issues facing our nurses and patients in the troubled units anymore.

Although we acknowledge and welcome the appointment of Kevin Smith the Supervisor to the Niagara Health System, we feel that the situation in units such as the Niagara Falls emergency department are at a desperate point and we have no choice but to move forward.  ONA and nurses have stayed respectfully silent in the press as our duty under the College of Nurses and our own personal integrity holds us to a standard of confidentiality that we will not break even when personally persecuted in the press and public.

Maybe it took the media’s attention and reporting of an unfortunate situation where an elderly lady laid waiting for help in the Niagara Fall Site along with the earlier reporting of the episodes of the confusion around the other 2 situations whereby people waited in the parking lot for help. Whatever the reason or catalyst, ONA, the union representing the 1500 nurses at the NHS knows that the answers lie far beyond the unit and we look forward to the outside committee, once again, coming in to fix our units so that our nurses can work and function to their full scope, capacity and hopefully in the future have the tools to do so.

That is definitely not the situation at the present time.

Time and time again the ONA along with the nurses approached management with documented issues related to workload and staffing. We warned the hospital that we did not want it to come to a crisis situation in order for our professional voices to be heard.

Unfortunately that is exactly what happened in the end and now the nurses are once again in the press taking the heat for a system that failed them as they followed less than acceptable directives that were put in place with no input from the frontline.

My wish is that no more patients are left waiting for help anywhere whether on the hospital grounds or in the building and that is and has been the wish of all the nurses in the Niagara Falls Emergency department for several years! The problem is that they do the best with the resources they are given. Yes, there were nurses disciplined in this last situation, we acknowledge that as it was released to the press. But this action does little to fix the root cause of the problem.

As professionals and caregivers, ONA and the nurses have been and will continue to demand more. We want change so that every person that comes through that door has access to the best health care by the best provider in a timely manner, and we, the ONA, along with the nurses in the Niagara Falls Emergency department and across the NHS, are committed to making it a fabulous centre of care for all the community! That is our promise to the community! Unfortunately the answer has to come from a source outside the Niagara Health System once again!

Respectfully,
Loretta Tirabassi-Olinski RN BScN
President ONA Local 26
Niagara Health System

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