We look at the recent fine levied against the Northern Health Authority by WorkSafeBC. Violations included failure to report multiple safety infractions, including acts of violence against staff members. British Columbia's ailing healthcare system is discussed as more pressure, more stress, and more violence continue to pile up on the backs of our healthcare workers.

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So Nathan, we wanted to get into this, um, little piece

of current events in our province.

Kind of an interesting story outta Prince George, that the Northern Health

Authority here in BC was, was given a $355,000 fine after failing to complete

safety investigations of their sites.

And this is, uh, a fine imposed on them by, by WorkSafe, bc and.

Kind of kind of interesting story cuz this doesn't happen a whole lot.

And to me, I, I know that health authorities have that anytime there are

workplace injuries, there are issues of compensation and, and premiums can go

up for employers and stuff like that.

But $350,000 is not nothing like, that's getting into a bit more of a

significant penalty for an employer, even if it's as big as a health a.

I've got the article in front of me.

This is outta Prince George and what it says here, I won't

read the whole thing, but work.

Work safety C levied a $355,000 administrative penalty on our health

authority for failing to conduct adequate workplace in inspections,

following reports from nurses and other healthcare workers about

ongoing safety, safety issues.

At a fourth St.

John facility leading back to.

President has serious concerns as to whether this penalty is indicative,

indicative of a systemic oversight by health employers and the government on

the issue of violence, health, and safety.

That's a nice statement She makes there , you know, like that,

that that's a very, uh, that's a well-crafted little piece of prose there.

Yeah, because it , it says a lot, it says it nicely, but at the same time,

Yeah, you guys might, might wanna think about what's going on here, you know?

Well, yeah.

And this is the, the end of 2022.

And anyone who's been a healthcare worker for the last 15 years or more, but.

In my life experience in the last 15 years, violence has

been a part of the, of the job, unfortunately, for that whole time.

Mm-hmm.

. So , is there an oversight?

Well, again, language is so important here.

It's, it's an oversight or it's a.

Under the carpet sweep job

. Nathan: Yeah.

Uh, yeah, that's a nice little, uh, I like that, uh, statement there.

. Anyways, please.

I, the fact is all provincial health authorities use the same provincial

reporting system, and we know that there are issues within the system

as we've seen this with this penalty.

The nurses' union added similar issues have been seen in other health

authorities, including on Vancouver Island, which was ordered to engage in in

a compliance agreement with WorkSafe for poorly conducted safety investigations

and low safety training rates.

The BC and U are calling on the government to audit an all occupational health

and safety reports from the last year to ensure investigations are conduct.

And that corrective actions are put in place to keep health workers safe.

, Nathan: could you imagine if you're,

echelon of a health authority and you're, you're reading that statement?

I mean, I don't know if this is kind of like a, a warning shot or

it seems to me this is something that should have been done.

I don't know.

10 years ago at least.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Um, it, it, it's so odd the way this, this stuff works and I, you know, I know

we're limited in information and, uh, even understanding of the information that we

have, but I've got another article here.

Sure.

I guess we can add a little bit to it.

On the non-work safe DC's website, the agency inspected a long-term

care facility in Fort St.

John BC in response to an incident of violence against a worker.

The agency found the investigation reports for that incident, and several past

incidents lacked key information such as underlying causes and corrective actions.

Uh, which is, I mean, to me that means they just were

maybe filed and not done right.

Yeah, the employer failed to ensure a, a report of its full

investigation, was prepared in accordance with their guidelines.

Uh, and it was, uh, this was a repeated violation at the same site, so they'd

probably been warned multiple times.

And then, uh, Northern Health Mixes nonsense statement about how they

are the safest place in the world.

I didn't know that this was such a prevalent thing, but in 2021 there

were 4,438 reported incidents of violence in BC's healthcare sector.

That's a lot for a year.

Mm-hmm.

, I mean, My God, with 721 of those incidents turning into time loss

claims, uh, and, uh, work safety DC compensation payouts, working

out to approximately 7 million.

So could you describe to us what would be considered, uh, like what would be

reported as, as violence for a, a nurse?

I wouldn't have working.

Yeah.

Oh, verbal threats.

Name calling.

Okay.

Like gonna verbal violence idea, or I'm gonna kill you or, yep.

Something that, yeah.

Okay.

Yep.

Um, I've had, I've been called, called names sworn at.

I've had the threat of, you know, I'm gonna wait for you in the parking lot.

Mm-hmm.

, um, I've had that specific threat and then escalating to physical

altercations to nurses being grabbed.

Now, maybe that may be by a patient with dementia or patient

with cognitive impairment, but it may also be by, uh, strapping.

You know, young male patient or family member.

Okay.

And is this, so in these violent acts that they're counting here, that includes

patients who, cuz I know some if, if, if you're on ward where it's all cognitive

deficiencies and, and stuff like that, there can be a lot of, uh, hypersexuality

violence, all these aggression things that would lead to violence anyways.

Yeah.

So those are counted as.

Yeah, it's encouraged now that, that even those things are counted.

Okay.

Yeah.

And that the perception of violence can be counted.

And you know, I, I even recall one incident where I was slapped, um, by

a patient, by a female patient, . And, and it, the patient was, was confused.

And it, to me it wasn't a big deal.

Like it was, I was fine to continue working.

I was slapped on the on.

On the upper arm and, and was fine.

Wow.

It left

a What did you do to her, Corey?

What, what, what, what you,

what was going on?

I, you know, I think we were, I think we were trying to redirect this

patient back into bed and they, and they turned around and, and slapped me

in the arm and it left a palm print.

and . Geez.

Yeah.

And I remember just being like, oh, no, no, it's fine.

And I was like, strongly encouraged that.

even that report it and at least so that there's documentation of it,

there wasn't any follow through.

It wasn't a, it wasn't anything that I missed any time off for, but the, those

things are, need to be reported for statistics and, um, and for reporting.

So, so it could be something as small as that, or it could be

something as large as incidents.

Incidences that I am aware of, individuals.

Never went back to work after a, after a violent assault by a patient or patient

assault with weapons in some cases.

Yeah.

Um, that's the extent that we're talking about here.

So here's what I think is coming though too.

I mean, and I know that there, that occupational health and safety

committees look at, you know, at at floor plans and, and designs and egress

and, and all those types of factors.

We also know that, that one of the big factors for, for violence or

threats of violence are the wait times.

And, and so this week in, in our province, um, the children's hospital

let this past weekend reported 12 hour plus waits for, for children and their

families waiting for to access to er and the public health implications that

are, that's a whole other conversation.

And, and the a.

and rightly so, is primarily on the fact that our children in our province are

having to wait that long for healthcare.

The other side of that though is, is the stress and the tension that

that is putting on the system.

That then without question increases the risk for either verbal or physical

violence towards healthcare workers.

And I think I, I have been in that position where there have been

extreme wait times and that's when.

People are frustrated, people are pissed off, people are tired, people

are scared, and those are risk factors for for violence at the work.

Well, it's their, especially if you're talking about their kids,

like, uh, yeah, I believe, um, in Colonna they just lost a, a, I think

she was a nine year old girl to, um, is it scarlet Fever and pneumonia?

Something like that.

But it was missed.

Uh, she did get into the yard, it was missed on the original diagnosis.

Mm-hmm.

and likely due to rushing.

And, uh, she.

Yeah, and this, this is gonna be, uh, I think we're.

To me that's a, you know, a consequence of, of the changes that

have been made to our structure Yes.

Over the last little while here, and we're, we're trying to piece things back

together, but we've, you know, we've got immune systems that are not exposed.

We've got bugs that are now more vicious.

We've got all sorts of different things to contend with, but the fact that, uh,

our wait times are, are so preposterous.

If I could solve this one source of stress in pharmacy somehow, if I could

get rid, rid of the stress of knowing that there's people waiting mm-hmm.

, I don't know why that bothers me so much.

Yeah.

But I just, I, I can't imagine what it would be, what it would be like

from a nurse's perspective where you know that you've got people out there

who are in serious shape, maybe in really bad pain, like intolerable.

Uh, nausea, uh, maybe life-threatening situation.

They're waiting there sometimes for hours.

And then how are you supposed to even, I would just feel

like a jackass immediately.

Mm-hmm.

for being in, for working in a place that was so ill-prepared

for what its function is.

Yeah.

I mean, that must have killed you, Matt.

Like,

it, it did.

I, I had that What you're saying is absolutely how I felt.

Um, and it's a helpless, powerless, very stressful feeling.

You know, I, I, uh, a memory comes to mind where in the hospital I was working

in, there had been a, a pediatric death that had occurred earlier in the.

And we were just maxed out.

We were just full to the brim in the ER with patients the whole week.

It was just a really busy week.

I think it was probably in the winter, and it was just packed.

And, uh, and the wait times were, well, they weren't 12 hours, but they were long.

And, uh, a patient spouse came up to me and said, you

know, how long's it gonna be?

My wife is really sick.

And I was apologetic and said, yeah, I I, I'm sorry sir.

I don't know how much longer it'll be kind of a thing.

And he said, well, you, that's right.

You, you just kill children here.

Don't.

And, and, and so there you go.

So there's an, and that, that was devastating to me and I, this was shortly

before I kind of broke, so to speak.

And.

That has stuck with me.

I still remember it so well and how that, how you could say anything

other than that being an incident of violence, making a statement like that.

And I remember I said, how dare you and I, I kicked him out.

. Nathan: Well, pretty good restraint there.

. Yeah.

But yeah, I can't help but think about Children's

Hospital this past weekend and the 12 hour waits and how much.

How many times little microaggressions or larger aggressions were, were sort

of inflicted upon healthcare workers.

And what I would like to see to, to kind of bring it back to the original story

outta Prince George, what if you, what if when a 12 hour wait occurred, what if

you find the health authority and said, there you go, $350,000, or maybe less,

maybe it was a hundred thousand dollars.

Every time there's a 12 hour wait or something like that.

Yeah, there could be something done.

You

know, what about that?

Hit 'em where it hurts.

One thing that I've always thought would.

Would help at least a little bit.

I'd help a lot in, in rural communities where they have limited resources

is if they instilled just a $10 service charge at the counter.

Whenever you go to the er, that's all just 10 or walk-in clinic, it's just 10 bucks.

Yeah.

But what that would do, although if we may , uh, but maybe make that 20 now,

uh, it has to be enough so that , you know, you should have to think a little.

Before you just walk into the emergency or just walk into a, uh, walk-in clinic.

Don't just show up to the doctor because you walked by a clinic

and thought, Hey, why not?

I'll go in and see what's happening.

Mm-hmm.

, we don't have the resources for that anymore.

And I know people would freak out and No, well, it's, then

it wouldn't be free healthcare.

Well, you know, it's not really free healthcare anyways, guys, it's, it's us

pooling our money together to try and help each other when we need it the most.

Yeah.

That's what is going on here.

So I don't know if that would, what that would translate into, but I do

know that, uh, whether you're working on a pharmacy hospital, walk-in clinic,

whatever, there's those type of patients.

who are there because they're bored.

You know, there's, there's patients who are there because

they want to talk to somebody.

There's patients who, you see them every.

, they're, they're like repeat offender patients.

They just mm-hmm.

rotating through the door and they ne, you know, you see 'em,

what, what can we do for you?

Oh, oh, well I just had this one concern.

And you know, the doctor has a hell of a time getting 'em out.

They now, so, so they burn up like two spots, right.

For nothing.

Yeah.

And it's not that we shouldn't do something to help those

people, but it's not that.

Right.

Those people need some kind of social.

So I don't know, what do you think?

Do you, do you think that would alleviate some, some of the, uh,

yeah, pressure.

It, it would, it, it certainly would.

I've had that thought before too.

It can't be a barrier, you know, we, we can't have people staying at home

to avoid the, the service charge and then they die of some preventable

illness or, or something like that.

So, I don't know if that has to be managed, but.

I think there's a devaluation that goes on in people's minds

as well where they, they feel they're entitled to whatever.

Like, I want, I don't like that doctor.

I want this other doctor and I want, I want to have all these

items treated and I want these reports and blah, blah, blah, blah.

And nobody seems to understand about time and resources.

I dunno.

But it does.

It is also to me, what is happening is the health authorities are.

whether they're comfortable or not, they are, they seem to be willing

to continue on for as long as they can, as the, as the ship is sinking.

Like they're, they're willing to put the staff that they have

under an immense amount of stress.

And, and so whether the penalties should be to the health authority specifically or

whether they should be somehow, and this is a whole thing with regionalization, is

that, that it's the region that gets d.

But it is the administration of the hospital that is then accountable

to the greater health authority that makes those small micro decisions

that impact that 12 hour period.

I think, and for example, last weekend in, in Vancouver when they,

you know, these 12 hour wait times, a code orange was called and a code

orange is like the code for a natural disaster or a mass casualty incident.

So it is the code that can, that can trigger more staff to come.

Where they can get people discharged, like you're saying, the person who's

just there farting around, get them discharged and home, create the

space, get excess patients, moved up to wards, create space in the er.

And that code was called on the weekend in Vancouver, and a half

an hour later is, it was canceled.

And I know, and that code is part of that process is to bring in extra staff.

30 minutes later it was canceled and.

, I have to wonder, like, is the, was that because it's gonna cost them money?

They wanna, as best they can say, oh no, we've got it under control now.

Well, you can't tell me that a half an hour later it was under control.

Can't be impossible.

No.

Yeah, certainly not, uh, possible.

I'm thinking about this.

From a punitive point of view here, if you've got a certain accountability,

you'd basically have to go up the list through the departments in each

hospital, and then from the hospital to the health authority and all the way

up to, yeah, Adrian Dickson and decide who, and I imagine this itself would

be a goddamn nightmare because they probably don't have a very good structure.

Who's responsible for what?

Yeah.

But at some point, uh, I suppose you could go after like there's a

hospital administrator, correct?

Um, correct.

And this would be considered the, this is the main person who's

overseeing the entire operation.

So I imagine that person, uh, gets paid a, a decent salary handsomely.

So I know that there can be efficiencies created in that echelon.

I know there's a lot of money wasted there along with other areas in the hospital.

But as far as as somebody taking responsibility, why is that administrator?

You'd say, well, I'm working within a budget.

Well, then you've gotta advocate for a bigger budget or

limit the number of patients.

Say this is not a hospital anymore that can do.

Instead of a hospital that has a hundred beds, declare yourself

a hospital that has 50 mm-hmm.

, well then my budget will shrink.

Well, okay, then you're gotta go to the next person.

Now why aren't you giving this guy enough money to to, uh,

to run his hospital properly?

And I, I don't know where you'd land at, at the person or the group of people.

This is the diffusion of responsibility principle that's

rampant in all corporate culture.

And all government especially, right?

But.

It's weird, isn't it?

Yeah.

Like what?

What is the motive here?

Is this all incompetence?

Is it all just poor money management corruption?

Or is there more than that?

Are you know, is there forces actually trying to put pressure on our

system to drive it into the ground?

Uh, and paved the way for privatization?

Yeah.

Sometimes I can't help but think that there's gotta be

exterior corporate motivation.

, you know, start picking at those areas, right?

Like, Hey, you know what?

We see you're having a big problem on that ward.

We got people here.

They're all trained up.

Why don't you just contract out to us?

We'll come in, we'll take over that problem for you.

Bang, that's one in there, you know, and then one section at a time.

All of a sudden you're, you're privatized.

Well, yeah, and I, you know, I, it's, it's a, a good question.

I think that two things for one, we, we are clinging to the, to the Tommy

Douglas style of, of public healthcare.

That was invented at a time when the population of Canada was

so, so different than it is now.

And the needs are so, were so, so different and we're

trying to clinging to that.

And I also think now, I mean, regionalization came

to be in our province.

In about 2000, 2001, something like that.

And that saw, instead of hospital administrators having their own sort

of pool of money, it saw larger pools, much larger pools were formed and

our province was broken into, uh, you know, about what eight segments

instead of each hospital sort of being.

Freestanding and independently operating, they are all clumped

into these health authorities.

That's a problem.

And now, so now we have haves and havenots.

Mm-hmm.

, now we have individual hospitals answering to, answering and being

accountable to a health authority that is doling out money and support.

Too much potential for, uh, too much potential for corruption

right there.

There's lots of potential for that there.

And, and you have communities that are suffering.

I think we have health authorities that are suffering.

Um, both by overpopulation down here in the south, and then going

back to the original story that we shared in about underfunding and

a lack of attention and just being sort of forgotten up in the north.

Mm-hmm.

and it doesn't make sense.

Um, I think we modify our system based on the needs at the time, and we

have to keep, it has to be evolving.

It has to be something that we continue to look at and change.

Because right now it seems like it's sinking and not sort of adapting.

Yeah.

We're we're running on like, uh, emergency resources as it is, right?

I mean, yeah.

I don't know what the ratio is, but how many hospitals do you think

are being staffed on a regular basis now by like travel nurses?

How many hospitals?

Yeah, like how many do you think are like, or temporary

staff that aren't usually there?

Many, many, many.

Yeah.

And those are more expensive.

They ha they can't be as, as, uh, well equipped for the job as somebody who knows

the place and has been there for a while.

Mm-hmm.

. So you're getting a decreased level of service for more money.

And this has been going on well, what's been going on since probably the last

20 years, but the last two years has put it into a, like a death spiral.

I don't know.

I I, we seem to be a country with, uh, uh, money that the same as the states.

They just, they keep summoning up this money from somewhere.

I don't, yeah, I don't know where, but they never summon

enough for the important things,

you know?

Yeah.

And I guess the last thing I would say is tying it back to our, our podcast and the

themes of the things that we talk about.

Is that the unspoken consequence of, of violence in the workplace of

extreme congestion and stress and the disenfranchisement of, of a workforce

is that you'll have more people who are trying to cope and trying to

self soothe and, and there are more people in that whole world right now.

Of healthcare workers who are struggling, and to hear the government say, well,

we're, we're talking about mental health and we're talking about addiction

and we're trying to make this better.

It's like,

oh yeah.

They either have no idea what's going on on the ground level or they're

bullshitting and it's both, yeah.

Walking into the any pharmacy right now and seeing how, if I was motivat.

To to say, I, I was like, eh, you know what?

I'm gonna go back and get a nice steady stream of pharmaceuticals going, uh, this

would not be a problem right now for me.

Everything is in such a state of chaos in, in, in just that industry that

it's gonna take years to get back to where anybody knows what even happened.

Yeah, and I'm sure that's kind of how record keeping is in

the hospital right now too.

Right.

Yeah.

So, so yeah, you gotta wonder how many new problems is this generating

with this immense, unreasonable and, uh, violent workplace setting?

And then, uh, and then the circumstances in which it allows,

uh, people to just go wild, right?

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

I would, uh, I would expect to keep seeing more of the same.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's our, uh, update on that situation.

We'll keep you guys inform.

There'll probably be a little bit of follow up, and then we'll see.

We'll see what happens with WorkSafe, BC and, uh, are they bluffing

or will they come for everyone?

find out on our next episode, and please, if you're watching

on YouTube share like s.

Comment, do whatever you gotta do to express yourself so we can hear from you.

Yeah.

And, uh, to our listeners, thank you very much for, uh, tuning

in and, uh, we'll talk soon.

Talk soon.