YRNA Letter to Yukon Premier
Following is the text of a letter sent to Premier Dennis Fentie from YRNA President, Lee Ash.
18 November 2004
Dear Mr. Fentie:
The Board of the Yukon Registered Nurses Association was interested in the article in the Whitehorse Star on 17 September 2004 which described your reaction to the results of the First Ministers’ meeting regarding health care. We were very pleased to see that issues that nurses are concerned about were raised by you in the interview. For example, a wish to create a more seamless health care system, a focus on disease prevention, and a commitment to improving the health of aboriginal people. You also mentioned initiatives related to recruitment and retention of health professionals which is a big priority, as we see the aging workforce quickly approaching retirement. This issue is becoming more and more urgent, because without the people needed to provide health care, there will be no health care system. We look forward to actively participating with your government and other health professionals as we explore solutions to this problem.
We were struck by a comment made by the journalist towards the end of the article when she said that you would not say whether increasing the level of caregivers would include increases in benefits and wages to doctors and nurses. It is interesting to us that people tend to think that wages and benefits are the major factor affecting the satisfaction of health professionals and journalists often raise this question. While there is no doubt that a good wage and benefit package is a necessary aspect in the recruitment of registered nurses, it is not the main factor when it comes to retaining them. Nurses tell us that the issue of most concern to them is workload. They are nearly always so busy, they are unable to deliver the kind of care that their patients deserve. They report that they are constantly short staffed, that they are regularly asked to work on their days off and, that in our facilities, hardly a day goes by without someone calling in sick.
However, when we speak to employers and managers in many work places, we often hear that all positions are filled or are in the process of being filled. How does this match with ongoing staffing problems that our nurses are telling us exist?
It leads us to believe that current levels of staffing do not accurately reflect the reality of the work place. Things have changed quite dramatically in our health care system over recent years. Patients in hospitals are more acutely ill. In our long term care facilities, we have residents who are living longer, but often with more complicated, chronic conditions. Home care programs have similar case loads. On top of dealing with this increase in acuity, nurses have been progressively assuming more responsibilities. While we would not want to discourage nurses working to their full scope of practice, some of this has happened without deliberate planning and without a corresponding increase in supports or staffing. All this is compounded by a requirement to also perform non-nursing activities, an issue of great concern.
We would like to suggest that as part of any examination of future health human resource needs, a review of the staffing levels of nurses in all health programs be undertaken by (nursing) experts in this area. Hopefully we will be able to establish some realistic staffing patterns for nurses and for auxiliary staff, so that nurses can nurse and do so in the safe and caring way that provides quality care to patients and job satisfaction to nurses.
Nurses are interested in coming to work in the Yukon. They will be more likely to stay if we can offer them permanent positions, as opposed to casual ones, and a work environment that permits them to practice safely and provide quality care to their patients.
We look forward to discussing these and other important issues with you in the future.
Yours truly,
Lee Ash, RN
President
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Nurse Practitioners and Issues for the Yukon
The August 2004 newsletter included a YRNA paper called Nurse Practitioners and Issues for the Yukon. YRNA intends that this paper will be the starting point for discussion on the future direction for nurse practitioners in the Yukon. This paper has been posted on the website in the "YRNA Publications" section. Click here to link to the paper. A number of broad questions have been developed for those of you who would like to provide feedback and be involved in some of the decisions that will need to be made regarding our future direction. Click here to link to the questions. Please take some time to read the paper and provide feedback. You can respond by phone, fax, e-mail or in person at the YRNA office. Copies of the paper will be sent to nursing and non-nursing stakeholders locally and nationally. Their feedback will also be taken into account as we move forward with this issue.
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Commission on the Future of Health Care in Canada
(Romanow Commission)
In April 2001, the Prime Minister established the Commission on the Future of Health Care in Canada, to review medicare, engage Canadians in a national dialogue on its future and make recommendations to enhance the system's quality and sustainability. In November 2002, Roy Romanow, the Commissioner for this endeavour, released his landmark report Building on Values: The Future of Health Care in Canada. To see the final report, click here 
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Canadian Nursing Advisory Committee (CNAC)
The Canadian Nursing Advisory Committee (CNAC) was created in 2001 in response to the first recommendation of the Nursing Strategy for Canada. This strategy was developed by the Advisory Committee on Health Human Resources and approved by the Ministers of Health in October 2000. The primary goal of the CNAC was to formulate recommendations for policy direction that would improve the quality of nursing worklife at the federal, provincial and territorial levels. CNAC, chaired by Michael Decter, released its final report Our Health, Our Future: Creating Quality Workplaces for Canadian Nurses in September 2002. To see the final report click here 
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YRNA Statement to the Commission on
the Future of Health Care in Canada
YRNA was selected to appear before the Commission on the Future of Health Care in Canada, headed by Roy Romanow during the Yukon consultations in April 2002.
YRNA's submission to the Commission, The Preferred Future for Health and Illness Care in Canada, is downloadable from the Publications page or by clicking here
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Quality Professional Practice Environments (QPPE)
for Registered Nurses
A quality nursing professional practice environment is one in which the needs and goals of the individual nurse are met at the same time as the patient or client is assisted to reach his or her individual health goals, within the costs and quality framework mandated by the organization where the care is provided (O'Brien-Pallas, L., Baumann, A. and Villeneuve, M., 1994).
Quality of work life is determined by many factors, many of which are inter-related. The diversity of the nursing workforce and of practice settings means that there is no single work life issue to be addressed, but rather a constellation of issues each contributing in a different way to professional and personal job satisfaction. The range of issues includes appropriate workload, professional leadership and clinical support, adequate continuing education, career mobility and career ladders, flexible scheduling and deployment, professional respect, protection against injuries and diseases related to the work place, and wages that commensurate with education, experience, responsibility and performance.
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