Year: 2005
Location:Calgary
Profile: Holly Heffernan trained at Foothills Hospital in Calgary, graduating as an RN in 1976 and later receiving a Bachelor of Nursing degree from the University of Calgary. She was working at the Calgary General Hospital before the 1982 nurses’ strike. Heffernan says that the struggle to maintain Professional Responsibility Committees was the major strike issue. Though Heffernan left the General in 1988 for the Rockyview, she was a district representative and had significant contact with the nurses at both the General and Holy Cross before Ralph Klein shuttered both hospitals. The Klein cuts meant fewer healthcare staff, and overworked nurses who no longer had time to spend with individual patients to listen and demonstrate compassion. Nor did nurses have time anymore to de-stress, for example, with playful water fights. The result was more stress leaves. The cuts also meant that patients were sicker than before when they were admitted and that they were discharged often too soon to make way for other patients. Heffernan and UNA fought against the outsourcing of laundry, housekeeping, and kitchens. Her disgust with the priorities of conservatives caused Heffernan to run both provincially and federally for the NDP, including three runs federally against Stephen Harper.
Keywords: Calgary General Hospital; Caring; Code burgundy; Emergency ward; Foothills Hospital, Calgary; Holy Cross Hospital, Calgary; Klein cuts; Overwork; Privatization; Professional Responsibility Committees.
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See also: Occupational Health and Safety in Alberta; United Nurses of Alberta; Women and Work in Alberta