MEDIA ADVISORY: Ontario north east and north west registered practical nurses talk openly about pandemic experiences; Northern Ontario RPN poll being released Wednesday May 12 – 11 a.m.

NORTH EAST/WEST, ON  –/COMMUNITYWIRE/– As part of Nursing Week (May 10-17) registered practical nurses (RPNs) from Ontario’s north east and north west who are members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Ontario Council of Hospital Unions (OCHU/CUPE) and SEIU Healthcare are speaking openly with media (tomorrow) Wednesday May 12 at 11 a.m. on ZOOM (http://bit.ly/OCHUSEIU-nursingwk) about their personal challenges and experiences working throughout the COVID-19 crisis.

Northern Ontario hospital-based RPNs have worked diligently on the pandemic front lines for nearly 16 months. Behind their stoic façade there are tens of thousands individual stories of inner turmoil, trauma, and resilience.

Their unsettling first-person accounts of the impacts on their lives and wellbeing working in hospitals through the pandemic are supported by a CUPE poll of northern Ontario RPNs and an SEIU survey of 560 of their RPN members. Area hospital-based RPNs were probed about their mental health, morale, workload and how they feel about nursing following grueling months of pandemic work.

The Northern Ontario CUPE poll and SEIU survey findings open a window into this highly skilled but undervalued female workforce. The CUPE poll which includes RPNs from Health Sciences North (HSN) in Sudbury, Lake of Woods in Kenora and  La Verendrye Hospital – Riverside Health Care Fort Frances, is also part of a larger Ontario-wide poll of 2650 CUPE RPNs.

Ontario funding for hospital care is among the lowest in Canada. Today across the province, hospitals are critically short of nurses.  The poll and survey results are telling of an increasingly educated RPN workforce that even pre-COVID was dealing with a prolonged period of staff shortages, high acuity patients, heavy workloads, and health and safety risks.

Jointly CUPE and SEIU represent nearly 20,000 hospital-based RPNs among their collective hospital sector membership of about 70,000 who work in hospitals in every part of Ontario.

WHO:

• Front-line hospital RPNs with OCHU/CUPE and SEIU Healthcare
• SEIU Healthcare – President, Sharleen Stewart and Jackie Walker, President, Nursing Division
• OCHU/CUPE – President, Michael Hurley and Sharon Richer, Secretary-Treasurer

WHAT:

• Media conference May 12, 11 a.m. (Eastern Standard Time), as part of Nursing Week 2021 (May 10-17)
• CUPE and SEIU RPNs talk publicly about challenges of pandemic work
• Release of survey and a poll of Northern Ontario RPNs who have worked throughout the COVID-19 crisis

WHERE:

• Virtual media conference link: http://bit.ly/OCHUSEIU-nursingwk

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For more information please contact:

Stella Yeadon, CUPE Communications, 416-559-9300, syeadon@cupe.ca

Corey Johnson, SEIU Healthcare Communications, 416-529-8909, c.johnson@seiuhealthcare.ca