Ontario's nurses took to the streets to demand better working conditions.
Ontario Nurses Association (ONA) and Ontario Hospital Association (OHA) organized an All-Out-Rally in Toronto on Jan. 29 demanding better working conditions.
The demonstration attended by hundreds happened outside the Hilton Hotel, at 145 Richmond St. W.
ONA is the association for Ontario's registered nurses and nursing students in the province and one of their other demands is an improved nurse-to-patient ratio.
The nurse-to-patient ratio refers to how many patients a nurse is responsible for. A report from ONA says there are only 651 registered nurses for 100,000 people. The ratio is the lowest in the country and it dropped from 661 recorded last year, says the report.
ONA Provincial President Erin Ariss said in a statement that Ontario's ratio is the worst in the country, and it is high time we do something about it.
Ariss said Ontario's hospital CEOs must invest in nursing ratios, instead of understaffing the public system and outsourcing public health-care services to private clinics.
He said the last time a contract was negotiated with the hospital CEOs was 14 years ago.
“We want one for today,” he said.
Region 4 vice-president Grace Pierias said the government is constantly privatizing the hospital sector and the nurses are leaving and going to the private sector.
“All I know is that we are short-staffed from head-to-toe in the hospital sector, nurses are burnt-out, there are too many patients and not enough nurses,” Pierias said. “It is constant decimation, there’s nobody left to fill those jobs.”
She said they are currently in negotiations with the government for their demands but have not yet heard anything back from the government's side. Pierias said all they have heard back are “false promises” and we know, and the patients know that nothing is happening.
“The brutal truth is that hospital CEOs are intentionally understaffing our public sector so that they can expand the private care,” she said.
Protesters chanted slogans including “stand up and fight back” and “patients over profits” to express their demands and the things they are fighting against.
Pierias said the nurse-to-patient ratio varies across different areas of the hospitals considering the urgency of the ward.
“There have been studies in California, in B.C., it can be done in Ontario,” she said.
Pierias said they are backed by dozens and dozens of volunteers and participants apart from their members and the support is still just growing.
“Everything is on the table at this point,” she said. “We are taking measures we are rallying, we are petitions, talking to the CEOs, the government and we are gonna do what we need to do to get what we need.”
The heads of ONA and OHA were deliberating a contract inside the Hilton hotel while the protest was going on, out on the street.
The two associations were to meet again on Jan. 30 to try to reach an agreement.
