AUPE Vice-President Bonnie Gostola (in green) stands with health care workers protesting outside the Red Deer Regional Hospital on Monday. (rdnewsNOW/Alessia Proietti)

By Alessia Proietti

May Day provincial rally

Health care workers protest short-staffing and working conditions at Red Deer Regional Hospital

May 3, 2023 | 3:31 PM

Alberta Union of Provincial Employees (AUPE) health care workers rallied outside the Red Deer Regional Hospital on May Day to protest chronic short-staffing and deteriorating working conditions.

Rallies were held by AUPE members across the province on May 1, also known as International Worker’s Day, which honours those fighting for labour rights and economic justice.

“Working short is a crisis that costs us all,” said AUPE Vice-President Bonnie Gostola, who also chairs the union’s Occupational Health and Safety committee.

AUPE says they recently conducted an all-member survey on the topic, where 4,000 members responded. They say approximately 40 per cent reported working without breaks and 25 per cent reported working through their lunches.

“Employers and bosses across the province are taking advantage of their workers, union and non-union alike,” said Gostola. “Employers take advantage of us because we care, because we’re dedicated to the work we do, but that is not healthy or sustainable long-term.”

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Officials with the group said as the provincial election also kicked off on the first day of May, they are calling on the government to hire, recruit and retain more health care workers to fix the ongoing staffing crisis.

“Most AUPE members can trace their deteriorated working conditions to political choices made by the Alberta government, past and present,” she said, adding the issue has been around before the pandemic.

Gostola said she remembered when the province realized in 2007 that there would be a health care crisis. She said while more seats were added in school programs, the government did not ensure workloads were doable, that sufficient positions were filled, and how to keep workers. She says she has heard stories of nurses entering the industry to leave after three months from an overbearing workload, with one nurse returning to her previous employment as a bartender.

Health care workers rally at the Red Deer Regional Hospital on Monday. (rdnewsNOW/Alessia Proietti)

Jason Heistad, AUPE Executive Secretary Treasurer, also Alberta NDP candidate for Innisfail-Sylvan Lake, shared that one retiring worker stated this Monday was one of her first days in weeks that she has had a full roster in her unit.

“It’s an ideology in our province to understaff and not look after the staff but also the patients,” he said. “Truthfully, we’ve had this issue for decades. If you go back to the 90s, this is when it all started; when you don’t have a full complement of staff in your public services.”

Gostola said too many members are hired part-time, requiring taking on two jobs to make ends meet, citing one example of a part-time nurse also working at a Dairy Queen.

“When there’s not enough staff on deck, we know patient care suffers. It’s an unintentional consequence but that’s the reality we’re facing,” said Jesse Philp, Local 44 chair, who provides nursing care in the central region.

Other workers, Gostola said, are hired as contract workers which provide for inconsistent care as they can fill in for just a few days. Particularly in rural communities, she said 30 per cent of members surveyed said they have worked with contracted employees.

“Our workers feel like they’re actually working even further behind the eight ball because they feel like the contract workers aren’t pulling the weight they need to pull to actually meet the needs of the clientele that they’re servicing. That’s where the crisis lies,” she said.

She says the government’s plan to recruit more international nurses, typically contracted by private agencies, falls under the same ilk.

READ: Province hoping foreign nurses can fill open spaces in Alberta

“If you have to bring nursing in and they have the ability to be hired into a contract agency, why aren’t we hiring them at AHS [Alberta Health Services]?” she said. “Because they have burnt through, basically, the local community people that are in a small town.”

Gostola says vacancy rates in hospitals have shown at times between 15-20 per cent with a working model of leaving employees to take on the workload when a member calls in sick.

“Now, instead of hiring more staff, improving wages, and working conditions, the private sector of our continuing care system is making matters worse by continuing to not offer full-time positions in favour of bringing in contracted agencies to staff the facilities,” said Local 47 Secretary Judith Cseresnyes, representing members working for private long term care providers.

AUPE Vice-President Sandra Azocar said workers feel there is an expectation to have at times no work-life balance, pushing workers to the brink of exhaustion, burnout and illness.

“There is a high expectation or demand to put in overtime – workers know the need is there but they’re also tired – it’s just not sustainable, nor is it fair to the workers and their families,” she said.

“AHS has a Human Resources department that is responsible for hiring, recruiting and retaining health care workers, so its time they do their job, stop cutting corners and contracting out these important jobs – especially in rural areas that need long-term solutions.”

The UCP released a statement on healthcare in Red Deer on Tuesday, stating that their government increased public health spending by over $2 billion since 2019, adding 700 physicians and nearly 6,000 staff at AHS, including 1,800 registered nurses and 300 paramedics.

READ: Alberta NDP says they will put shovels in ground for Red Deer Regional Hospital in 2024

AUPE is western Canada’s largest union with over 95,000 members.