Capital Health Nurses Talking Strike Action In June

Let me start by saying I am not a health care worker, nurse or government employee or anything like that so I don't have any information about this except for the news reports.

According to the CBC nurses/health care workers in Nova Scotia Capital Health are gearing up for a strike which will likely happen in June.

I cannot for the life of me understand how we can allow nurses and health care workers to strike. It should be illegal. They are government employees, civil servants and if they aren't an essential service, I don't know who is.....

Let's be realistic, employees at a
 fictional XYG Manufacturing go on strike, the company, XYG suffers, as do shareholders if it's a public traded company. The strike action is against the company, and it could potentially lose customers and revenues. I get that.

For that matter, office workers at a government dept like Natural Resources go on strike, well some stuff doesn't get done. Perhaps good stuff doesn't get done, but for all intents and purposes, it is unlikely that peoples lives will be in jeopardy.

But nurses and health care workers go on strike and potentially, you and I suffer. We suffer because of even longer wait times, we suffer because there are not enough qualified health care workers to care for us during times of illness. Surgeries can get postponed, even if they are "elective" surgeries, people, you and me, can still be suffering because we have to wait for a hip replacement or some such thing.

But officials say, "oh don't worry, we have emergency services still available and always will."

Uh-huh, well with wait times like they are at times in Nova Scotia hospitals already, it seems like they we are already shorthanded. If they can offer the same services with less staff, maybe it proves hospitals are overstaffed and the staff are underworked.

It's time the NDP government under Premier Dexter got serious with health care in Nova Scotia and make them an essential service with no right to strike. It's time....