Canada continues to see far more workers in multiple workplace sectors injured and made ill on the job than should ever happen. We have the knowledge and tools to prevent workplace injuries and death in most cases but this troubling reality persists.
That’s why we continue to recognize Canada’s National Day of Mourning every April 28. It is an important opportunity to remember workers who have been killed, injured, or suffered illness due to their work. It is also an opportunity to recommit to building safe and healthy workplaces for everyone.
It’s fair to say that no other group of workers has suffered more these past three years due to their occupation than nurses and health-care professionals, especially in Ontario.
These workers continue to be among the most injured and ill professions. It was true before the pandemic, and it has only worsened to a heartbreaking degree – with no end in sight.
Despite this, nurses and health-care professionals have been there for patients, residents and clients throughout. Not only have they suffered physically, the rates of moral distress and post-traumatic stress disorder among the workforce have skyrocketed.
Repeatedly exposed to illnesses, subjected to physical and verbal injuries and abuse, nurses and health-care professionals have paid a high price mentally and physically to do the job they love – caring for you.
This is why hospital members of the Ontario Nurses’ Association celebrated the recent award of unlimited mental health coverage as a result of an arbitration decision. Nurses in all sectors continue to push for access to in-person mental health supports that are so crucial to their well-being.
Year after year, poll results show that Ontarians trust and respect nurses more than almost all other professions. Anyone who has ever needed care has seen that these workers truly are the backbone of the health-care system.
But they have lost far too much during the pandemic – wages, benefits, support, colleagues and their patients. Many have lost any hope to continue working in the profession they love.
On this year’s Day of Mourning, show nurses and health-care professionals the respect they so deserve, and demand your politicians do the same. Tell them that nurses require government support so that they can provide the care our patients so desperately need.
Bernie Robinson is a registered nurse and the Interim Provincial President of the Ontario Nurses’ Association.
