Focus will be on reducing workplace incidents, promoting greater wellness throughout the healthcare system
New Brunswick is looking to provide better workplace protections for health-care workers.
The government will collaborate with health partners to create a new strategy to address health, safety and wellness in the workplace for health-care professionals.
“We heard from a wide range of health-care workers who provided us with feedback when developing our new provincial health plan,” said Dorothy Shephard. “We heard far too many stories of workers who have experienced violence and harassment in the workplace. This is not acceptable. Our health-care professionals are dedicated employees who deserve to work in a healthy and safe environment.”
The strategy will be developed in collaboration with the Department of Health, regional health authorities and Extra-Mural/Ambulance New Brunswick.
The strategy will focus on reducing workplace violence, recognizing employee efforts and promoting greater wellness throughout the health-care system.
“Ensuring employees work in a safe and healthy environment is necessary if we want to succeed in stabilizing our health-care system,” said Shephard. “This initiative will improve employee satisfaction, attract new workers and help retain them.”
Struggles
Previously, health-care workers in different parts of the country have suffered from different difficulties as they continue to battle the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ontario healthcare employers must do a better job protecting their frontline workers amid the COVID-19 pandemic, judging from reports of recent events in Ontario.
In September, Quebec police were looking for a man who allegedly repeatedly punched a nurse in the face. The man was angry and claimed that the nurse had vaccinated his wife against COVID-19 against her consent, according to reports.
In a report, Seniors Advocate Isobel Mackenzie. noted that 210 care home sites in the province experienced a total of 365 COVID-19 outbreaks between March 2020 and February 2021. And in 76 per cent of those outbreaks, the first case was among a staff member.
Since the pandemic started, there have been alarming reports of violence towards frontline workers. And the cases of burnout among Ontario doctors have increased this year.
Developing the strategy is part of New Brunswick’s new health plan, Stabilizing Health Care: An Urgent Call to Action. The plan outlines a path forward, intended to stabilize and rebuild New Brunswick’s health-care system to be more citizen-focused, accessible, accountable, inclusive and service-oriented.
“Action must be taken immediately to stabilize the system and prevent further deterioration of services. It will take everyone working together to bring about the changes that are urgently needed,” according to the government.
