Year: 2005
Location: Canmore
Profile: Helen Krizan was raised in northwestern Ontario, and trained as a nurse at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Thunder Bay from 1952 to 1955. Her marriage in 1955 to a Canmore man, whom she had met while attending a nursing convention in Banff, brought her to Alberta. She worked for two months at the Canmore Hospital but with zero orientation, she found the work too stressful. After raising her family, she returned to the Canmore Hospital in 1968, this time finding that adequate orientation had been implemented. She remained with the Hospital until her retirement in 1993. Krizan and her colleagues, though not yet unionized, joined the 1979 provincial UNA strike because they were unhappy with their wages and with employer efforts to change their pensions unilaterally. They also found their new administrator arbitrary and looked forward to having Professional Responsibility Committees (PRCs). Management’s demand in 1988 to remove PRCs was a key reason why Canmore nurses supported the illegal 1988 strike.
For much of her time at Canmore Hospital, Krizan worked in long-term care. In 2020 the Canmore and Area Hospital Foundation named one of their gardens Helen Krizan Garden as a tribute to Krizan’s long-term care accomplishments.
Keywords: Canmore Hospital; Long-term care; Orientation for nurses; Professional Responsibility Committee; UNA strikes, 1979, 1988.
Transcript: Download PDF
See also: United Nurses of Alberta, Women and Work in Alberta