Nurses at Windsor Regional Hospital joined nurses throughout the province on the picket line Thursday calling for better staffing, better wages, and better care.
Contract negotiations with the Ontario Nurses Association and Ontario Hospital Association began on January 30. The current contract expires on March 31, 2023.
"This time around, very clearly, wages are the top priority but also recruitment, retention and the job security issue," said Jo-Dee Brown, bargaining unit president at Hotel-Dieu Grace Healthcare and first vice-chair for Local 8.
Brown said nurses continually work short-staffed which affects the level of care in the hospitals. Brown said there are 200 open positions at Windsor Regional Hospital alone.
"When you are working that short, it makes it very, very difficult to provide the top quality care that we know as nurses we need to be providing to our patients. It's a moral distress to go home at the end of your day knowing that although you did your best, it's not good enough," said Brown.
Brown, who is part of the provincial negotiation team, does not expect to have a new contract in place by the time the current contract expires. Although more contract negotiations are scheduled for next week, arbitration dates are already scheduled for May.
