Several hundred striking nurses circled the Nova Scotia legislature Thursday, fully expecting they will be ordered back to work sometime Friday.

But their one-day strike has had an effect on patient care.

SEE ALSO: Patients sad, upset as surgeries cancelled due to strike
Medical services in Capital District Health Authority during strike

Chris Power, CEO of the Capital district health authority, said 91 surgeries scheduled for Thursday were cancelled and others scheduled Friday are also cancelled.

In all, 234 surgeries have been postponed since Monday.

Power said the strike “is still having a serious impact on care for patients who can’t access care or whose care has been postponed.”

About 300 outpatient clinic appointments on Thursday were cancelled, but emergency and essential surgeries have not been affected.

While their time on the picket line will be short, the registered nurses and union supporters across the province vowed the war against Premier Stephen McNeil and his Liberal government is far from over.

“You’ve got a premier six months in office and he’s picked a fight with the nurses and he’s done nothing to create a better health-care system,” said Joan Jessome, president of the Nova Scotia Government & General Employees Union, which represents 2,300 registered nurses at the Queen Elizabeth II Health Sciences Centre and the Nova Scotia Hospital.

“These nurses have long memories. It’s going to last ... into the next election.”

Her words were echoed by Rick Clarke of the Nova Scotia Federation of Labour, who said Bill 37, which will make the striking nurses and thousands more health-care workers essential, is “a frontal assault” on labour in the province.

“It’s uncalled for and the trouble is it’s having a breakdown on the relationship with workers across this province,” he said.

Clarke said he is skeptical about the Liberal government’s agenda.

“We were anticipating some sort of legislation against Local 97 (nurses). And (it) ... absolutely impacts every other government employee that’s not already under similar legislation.”

He said McNeil is “absolutely going out in the next election.”

Chanting “nurses united will never be defeated,” nurses and their supporters marched around Province House throughout the day Thursday. Others picketed the Victoria General and Halifax Infirmary sites of the QEII complex.

Under an agreement worked out between the authority and the union to staff units at essential levels, Capital Health said 350 RNs were working the day shift. Normally, 894 would be scheduled.

The legal walkout came two days after some nurses walked off the job illegally in protest of the controversial essential-services legislation.

And it comes after negotiations for a new collective agreement broke down, with nurses calling for mandatory staffing levels.

 

Capital Health and the government have refused to budge on the demand for nurse-to-patient ratios.

Nurses walking the picket lines were quick to give examples of problems they say are caused by staffing levels that are too low for safe patient care.

“We are running off our feet,” said one nurse, a recent graduate who has been working since November.

“I shorten my breaks,” she said. “I don’t want to use the washroom because my patients have to use the washroom.”

She said her own 93-year-old grandmother waited hours alone in a chair, unable to get back to her bed without help because there weren’t enough nurses on duty.

A nurse who works in the mental health unit, who just wanted to go by the name of Sue, finished her shift at the Infirmary at 7 a.m. and went immediately to the picket line. She said many of her patients were asking who would be working after the strike started.

“They were asking who would be in and they wanted to know how many and if they were registered nurses or not.”

She said the patients who were aware through the media of what was going on “were asking really detailed questions and backing us 100 per cent.”

She said patients “realize what it’s like when we’re short of staff on a regular basis, so it’s a short-term pain for a long-term gain for them, which is why I think they threw their support behind us.”

She said often when the unit is short a registered nurse, a licensed practical nurse is brought in as a replacement.

“That suffices, not from the point of view of the nurses or the patients but from” Capital Health’s, she said.

Ginger Hampton, who works in the Infirmary’s intensive care unit, said Capital Health is cutting corners to save money in ways that don’t make sense “when the front-line workers are the ones who can tell you where the money is going down the drain.”

Hampton said the essential staffing in place during the strike had more people working in some units than there are on most regular days.

Capital Health’s Power said there may have been more in a unit like the ICU because a higher number of patients needed care, but some units had reduced or no staffing.

People whose surgeries have been cancelled because of the strike won’t have to wait long, said Dr. David Kirkpatrick, chief of surgery.

“They don’t go to the back of the list and start over again,” he said.

But people with surgeries booked for next week may end up having their surgery date postponed because of that.