Open letter to Richmond-Centre MLA Teresa Wat,
I was admitted to Richmond Hospital the day after International Women’s Day (March 8) for major surgery and spent five days recovering.
This was the first time I had ever had surgery and other than a five-day stay just before this time — when my problem first became apparent a couple months earlier — I had never, as an adult, spent any time in a hospital.
For five days, I watched these women, because nurses are predominately women, run and serve and put themselves in danger.
But not once did I see one of them lose their patience and it wasn’t even apparent in their voices when they were dealing with patients who were impossible, due to illness, pain and behavioural changes due to the drugs they were on for their recovery.
Before I went to the hospital, I thought, like most people in B.C., that nurses made a pretty good wage.
Nonetheless, while I lay there watching what they were doing every minute of their shift, I couldn’t help thinking that the $35 per hour these women were making was not enough.
They were getting hit by delusional patients, they were constantly being summoned with buzzers by everyone in the ward, they had sacks of paperwork to fill out, they had to double-check meds with other nurses to make sure the meds given could be signed off, they got splattered with blood, they helped people in pain by pulling feces out of their bums.
The list just goes on and on and this is not an isolated night; this is every night and every day.
As I lay there reflecting on these women and International Women’s Day, I thought, my God, they should be making $150 per hour for what they go through on a daily basis, while most of us are snuggled safely in our beds dreaming of sugar plums.
I decided to Google what they were actually making and, to my surprise, they were not even making the paltry wage of $35 per hour that I had mistakenly been led to believe they were making by the media.
Nurses in B.C. make far less than this. LPNs with two years of education are making a maximum of $24 per hour, RNs with four years of education are making a maximum of $30 per hour.
It is only a few RNs at the top, doing all the managerial duties, that get this top wage of $35/38 per hour.
The practicum students are working for free, but believe me, they are working as well.
If you ask me, this is shameful. My care at the hospital was incredible, in spite of all the cuts that have been made.
It was no less than a first rate experience that I would have expected to receive, living in a wealthy country like Canada.
What I see now is that this is not because it is so well funded, but rather it is because these remarkable women, who are dedicated to their profession to care for me, are doing such a superb job.
These women are not being paid what they are worth and if we really care about International Women’s Day, the women we say are important should get what they are worth.
Why are these women not being paid at least if not more than what a police officer or a firefighter gets paid?
Is it because we, in fact, don’t care about women at all, except in some silly ads the government takes out honouring them on International Women’s Day or some worthless speech the government spews so they can perhaps have an opportunity to be re-elected?
I await your response to my question. Will nurses in B.C. be paid what they are worth?
Wendy Miko
Richmond
