Date: 2021
Location: Edmonton
Profile: Ruth Alexander was born in London to a Guyanese-origin father and English-origin mother. Arriving in Edmonton in 1980, she worked in banking before studying Nursing at the University of Alberta School, graduating in 1989 and later earning a Nursing degree. She worked for years at University of Alberta Hospital in cardiovascular ICU. Brutal night shifts leading to canker sores precipitated a switch to community nursing. She became a transition coordinator, working as the medical half of teams with social workers to arrange community supports for patients being discharged from hospitals. She found that the health system included too few convalescent beds. Both at the hospital and in the community, Alexander chaired Professional Responsibility Concerns committees. She itemizes successes of these committees in both patient and staff safety. But she underlines that understaffing continues to undermine both, along with micromanaging of nurses by senior administrators. Alexander experienced racial discrimination from patients in her work but hopes greater diversity among both nurses and patients over time will help in the struggle for work equality. She notes that both in the hospitals and the unions that diversity is found more in the lower levels than at the top.
Keywords: Cardiovascular ICU; Community Nursing; Convalescent beds; Professional Responsibility Concerns; Transition coordinator; Understaffing of nurses; University of Alberta Hospital.
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See also: Black Communities in Alberta; Occupational Health and Safety in Alberta; Systemic Racism in Alberta; UNA; Women and Work in Alberta