October News 985-2131

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LICENSED practical nurses (LPN) at Lions Gate Hospital
(LGH) are being left high and dry by the tides of ad-
ministrative change, according to their Hospital Employee

Union (HEU) representatives.

Kathie Anderson, a 30-year
LGH employee and chief shop
steward for the hospital's approx-
imately 130 LPNs, said Tuesday
positions for LPNs will be cut in
half by next spring if the hospital
continues its move to change its
concept of patient care.

She said LGH is moving from
team nursing to total patient care
in its nine medical-surgical wards,
where an estimated 90 per cent of
the hospital's practical nurses
work.

Under the new system, nurses
will be assigned a set number of
patients and be responsible for alt
care required for those patients.

Under the old, or team, system
several nurses were responsible for
the various needs of patients.

By TIMOTHY RENSHAW

News Reporter

Because LPNs at LGH are not
permitted to administer medication
or intravenous injections to pa-
tients, they will be replaced by rep-
istered nurses under the new total
care system.

As a_result, Anderson said,
‘*morale is extremely low and it
just among the practical nurses. It
has set off a chain reaction right
down the line.”

She said the hospital’s LPNs had
set up a committee after being of-
ficially informed of the planned
changes to LGH nursing structure
in June.

“Lions Gate has always had an

excellent: reputation for patient
care and ft think we are all proud
of the part we do tn that care and
we don't want to sec it affected."

The LPN committce has been
meeting every two weeks ia an at
tempt to find ways to halt the nur.
sing changes.

But assistam director of nurse
stiffing at LGH) Donna Muit said
hone of the haspital’s practical
nurses Will be laid off.

She said the new system would
be more efficient and changes were
necded to better service the prow.
ing complexity of highly technical
and acute care.

Un ler the team nursing system,
Muir said, nurses perform dif.
ferent tasks for uifferent patients,
“but no one sees the patient as a
whole.""

She said the result was that no
one person would be aware of all
the symptoms and conditions of a
patient and might miss important
fluctuations in those conditions.

EPNs displaced by the new
higher ratio of repistered nurses to
practical nurses, she said, will be
offered other jobs within the hospital.

Anderson said) displaced LPNs
were being offered jobs ins the
hospital's Riaundry and Kitchen,

“Hut we want to be nurses. That
is what we were trained to be.’

ACLGH, practigal mitses, whose
training consists of a minimum 10
months, are responsible for alt
basic bedside care of patients,

With their minimum training of
twe years, registered nurses are
qualified to do more advanced
freatinents,

On a full-time equivalent basis,
LGH currently employs 104  prac-
tical nurses and 285 registered
nurses.

Starting wage for practical
murses at LG is $1,653 per
month; starting monthly wage for
aregistered nurse is $2,096.

Muir said that all LPNs at the
hospital have four years experience

TIME FREEZES for
these young men as a
rugby ball becomes the
centre of their universe
for a crucial split se-
cond. The junior team
Carson Graham squad
crushed Argyle 16-0 at
the Tuesday game.

ep omore. Monthly wage fer oan
LPN with four years experience is
$1,827, compared with $2,293 for
a registered nutse with four years
cApericnice,

Muir said employing more regis
tered nurses would be more ef fi-
cient nor more expensive, becuse
Most new registered nurses would
not have fout years experience so
their wage would be comparable
to present wapes paid to hospital
LPNs,

She added that extra staff had to
be bired to do the jobs LPNs could
not perform oat) the hospital
anyway, "so it is more cost effi-
cient to have one person do
everything.”

LGH president John Borthwick
said he understood the concerns of
the hospital's practical nurses,
‘but there is nothing revolutionary
in this. [t's just a change in the
way nursing care is delivered. The
intensity of care required has
changed."'

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