Year: 2021
Location: Edmonton
Profile: Daisy Plenderleith, having trained as an RN in Dominica and worked in healthcare in Barbados, came to Alberta in 1966 in search of a better life. She experienced racism from patients first in a nursing position in Bonnyville’s Protestant hospital and then in several units at Edmonton’s Royal Alexandra Hospital during a 35.5 year career. Though she had trained for three years in general nursing in Dominica and a year in midwifery and earned her RN designation, the Alex required her to retake the courses required to be recognized as an RN in Canada. In Bonnyville Plenderleith encountered a new mother who required a blood transfusion but refused Plenderleith as the provider, fearing contamination by “black blood.” Some Alex patients also refused to have a Black nurse.
Plenderleith refused work for which she felt unqualified such as administering drugs to a premature baby, and received union support. She also refused bloodwork for a doctor’s wife since her unit did not perform that task. She experienced the Klein cuts as a time of bumping, staff overwork that led to many resignations, and hallway medicine. Plenderleith retired in 2014 but had worked casual part-time for her last eight years of nursing.
Keywords: Bonnyville; Charles Camsell Hospital; Dominica; Hallway medicine; Overwork from staffing cuts; Recognition of foreign credentials; Royal Alexandra Hospital; Work refusal.
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See also: Black Communities in Alberta; Systemic Racism in Alberta; United Nurses of Alberta; Women and Work in Alberta