The difficulties faced by registered nurses and nurse practitioners over the last few years were highlighted in emotional fashion this morning.
President Yvette Coffey addressed the RNU’s biennial convention this morning.
Her voice breaking with emotion, Coffey thanked the membership for standing together during what has been a challenging few years made more difficult by the pandemic and what she calls worsening working conditions. She credits nurses and nurse practitioners with holding the health care system together.
She told delegates to the biennial convention that she is heartbroken for them, their patients and their clients, but as frustrated and defeated that she has felt at times, she’s never been more proud, and “in awe of the registered nurses and nurse practitioners of Newfoundland and Labrador.”
She also took the time to outline some of the extraordinary steps nurses have taken during the forest fires in central, during the hurricane response on the southwest coast and in the critical minutes and hours after a horrific blast at the Come By Chance Refinery in September.
She quoted Lauren Byrne who explained how nurses in the Clarenville area went above and beyond to stabilize injured workers.
She says the department was cleared, and they intubated six patients in order of severity. Byrne told Coffey had they been less organized, less efficient or less supportive of each other, the outcome would have been different. “This is why we can’t walk away from this profession, no matter how bad it gets,” Coffey quoted Byrne as saying.