John Terry south district representative of the United Nurses of Alberta Speaks to a crowd of people at the Rally for Public Health Care (Tiffany Goodwein/CHATNewsToday)

By Tiffany Goodwein

‘People not profits’: Hatters join together to defend public health-care

May 14, 2022 | 2:26 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB – Several dozen people gathered outside Medicine Hat Regional Hospital on Saturday to show their support for health-care workers and to say no to privatization.

The rally is in conjunction with National Nurses Week. John Terry is the south district representative of the United Nurses of Alberta. He said nurses answered the call during the pandemic, and now are beat down, and understaffed, with just about every unit in every hospital facing staff shortages.

“This UCP government is purposely destabilizing health care in Alberta so they can creep in with privatization, and privatization has been proven over and over, that it doesn’t work. As soon as you hook profits to healthcare, quality of care goes down, staffing goes down, because profits are attached,” he said.

Back in October 2020, the UCP government approved a policy at their annual general meeting that would allow for privately-funded and managed health-care system.

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Megan Eggins is a registered nurse and president of United Nurses of Alberta Local 70. She too has her concerns about what privatization would bring.

“My concerns are that not all Albertans are going to receive the same standard of care. My biggest concern is that those that can afford it will get it and those that can’t, they are going to be lost and forgotten, therefore putting a greater strain on the public healthcare sector, and also taking away alot of nurses. We are already very short-staffed. Not just nurses, all health-care workers,” she said.

Eggins said nurses have been in survival mode for two years, with staff working over time, and short-staffed. Stress is high, she said, and concerns about mental health persist.

“I can speak for myself but in the fall with the Delta wave it impacted a lot of people. Myself personally, I just know the RNs but there were about 40 of us that were redeployed, reassigned, and you are taken out of your role, and put into a different one, and some of us saw things that we never thought we would see in our career, and it was traumatizing,” she said

“I personally was on the COVID-19 unit and it was, it was a very sad experience. I never in my life thought I would see such acuity, and one disease take over a whole unit,” she added.

Eggins said the pandemic has resulted in an exodus of nurses and healthcare professionals who are simply done. For nursing in particular, she said a greater emphasis on recruitment and retention is needed, as is proper mentorship for new nursing staff.

The rally in Medicine Hat was part of a province-wide initiative. Rallies were also held in Lethbridge, Red Deer, Calgary and Edmonton.