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Committee miffed over diversity snub

Marcle Good

Contributing Writer

NORTE Vancouver District councillors went “berserk” last week over the work of a commit- ‘tee rather than providing the insight the members were hoping for, a co-chairman of the group has charged.

._ Jeffrey McPeanne appeared at last week’s coun- cil meeting for feedback on the draft diversity poli- cy, which a volunteer committee had worked on for two years. Councillors blasted him with criticism of the report and voted to disband the committee, but did not give him a chance to defend the work.

“I know it’s controversial; that’s why we need to deal with it with sober second thought,” he said. “You create a committee, they do their work, and then you: don’t even give them your comments. That was the most hurtful thing.”

The committee submitted the three-page dralt licy to council four months ago. In that time, said cPeanne, only two councillors responded in w

ing to the contents, and those comments were philosophical rather than dealing specifically with the recommendations.

See Council page 3

Jott MacKinnon

Contributing Writer

THE first step in soiving B.C.’s current nursing. shortage is to retain some of the province’s older nurses who are nearing retirement age, a public forum was told Wednesday at Lions Gate Hospital.

Nurses, educators and administrators gathered to discuss w: of solving a shortage that is nearing crisis proportions, not only in B.C. but in Canada, Statistics show that the nuning workforce is aging, leaving thase within the industry to worry that hospitals might have trouble providing adequate care to patients in the

future. In 1993 there were 48,838 nurses over the age of 50 in Canada

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Aging nurse population focus of Lions Gate Hospital forum

and 33,429 under the age of 29, according to statistics provided by the Canadian Institute for Health Information. In 1996 there were 57,966 nurses over the age of 50 and only 22,778 under the age of 29. y the average age of nurses is 45.

“Something has to be done about retaining nurses. As an under-30 nurse [ can tel! you Pim not very pleased with what Pm secing,” North Vancouver home care nurse Kim Sinclair told the forum.

Another nurse said administrators should focus their attention on making it more attractive for current B.C. nurses to delay retire- ment, rather than concentrate on luring nurses from outside the province with incentives.

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WEST Vancouver firefighter Mike Holmes inspects an area of a house under construction on Marlowe Place in West Vancouver on Tuesday. The area caught fire but construction workers tried to bring it under control before municipal

fire crews arrived.

“You talk about recruicment and trying to train these new peo- ple that you’re trying to recruit and I think that’s really great. But you know after 25 years it would really be nice if you tried to retain some of the nurses that are here and give us a bonus as opposed to giving a bonus to someone who cames from Ontario,” she said. “ .- after 25 years of nursing it would be a real nice incentive that we don’t have to work nights anymore.”

Much of the current nursing workforce will be leaving the field by the year 2010: 33% of all registered nurses are expected to retire by that year.

Currently 800 of the North Shore Health Region's 850 regis- tered nurses work at Lions Gate Hospital. The health region’s chairman Len Kelsey said in August that an additional 20 to 30 full-time registered nurses are needed to meet the region’s basic needs this fiscal year, However, because of a shortage of graduat-

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