This past month, PSAC held its first ever healthcare roundtable. Members from across the country came together to talk about the unique challenges faced by healthcare workers and to discuss strategies for addressing them.  

Issues in healthcare 

Healthcare workers – who were lauded as heroes at the height of the pandemic – are being overworked to the point of burnout across the country.  Recruitment and retention are critical issues that were brought up at the roundtable with members highlighting causes like poor work-life balance, excessive workloads, and understaffing leading to unsafe working conditions. These issues deter prospective healthcare workers from joining the field, further deepening the understaffing crisis.  

PSAC healthcare workers also sounded the alarm about privatization and outsourcing of work to agencies. Privatized healthcare prioritizes profits over patients.  Agency workers often have no personal connection to the communities in which they work, nor are they trained to address specific cultural needs of patients, especially those in the North, leading to a decline in quality care.  

Path to resolution 

Members discussed different avenues they could pursue to address the crisis in healthcare, from seeking improvements to working conditions through collective bargaining to lobbying elected officials at all levels of government.  

“The healthcare roundtable is an excellent opportunity for our members to strategize together to address the public healthcare crisis,” said Sharon DeSousa, President of PSAC National. “Coming together at a roundtable discussion reminds us that we are not alone in this fight and reinforces our determination to fight for better public services for all.”  

“As a nurse having worked for over a decade in the North I have seen first hand the challenges our communities face when governments fail to put patients ahead of profits, and I am proud that PSAC represents the majority of health care workers in the Northern Territories,” said Josée-Anne Spirito, Regional Executive Vice-President for the PSAC North Region. “As one of the strongest unions in Canada and the largest in the North, it is crucial that we continue to protect and fight for a universal public health care system that workers and families across Canada can be proud of.” 

The next roundtable will be with call centre workers on January 22-23 in Ottawa.