Rally recalls

post office
occupation

Some 200 people gathered out-
side the old Vancouver post office
Sunday as Steve Brodie, leader of
the historic sitdown by single
unemployed, returned to the place
where, 40 years before, he had
been beaten unconscious as RCMP
turned a peaceful occupation into
“Bloody Sunday.”

Brodie, who addressed the rally
together with another sitdown

veteran, Bill Cross, who took part.

in the concurrent occupation of the
Art Gallery, recalled the morning
of June 19, 1938, when police had
thrown tear gas into the post office
building and then had forced the
men fleeing outside to run a
gauntlet of club-swinging RCMP.
~“To me the 1930’s were much
more than the scene that morning
when Jim Redvers had his eye
knocked out by police and ‘Little
Mike’ fought his way past police
. back into the building — it was a
time when the government’s an-
swer to cut demands for jobs was
always jail and beatings,”’ Brodie
told the crowd.

United Fishermen and Allied
Workers’ Union president Jack
Nichol, who chaired the com-
memorative rally, warned that the
unemployment levels of the 1930’s
were again looming and stressed
that the labor movement ‘‘needs a
long term economic and political
program”’ to fight back.

Also on Sunday, sitdown veteran
bill Cross and B.C. Federation of
Labor secretary Dave McIntyre
addressed a rally marking Bloody
Sunday in Stanley Park, organized
by the Greater Vancouver Union of
the Unemployed.

VLC urges
tax reform

Reacting to a- “right wing
campaign to drum up a tax revolt”
aimed at municipalities, the
Vancouver and District Labor
Council Tuesday voted
unanimously to call on the
provincial government to relieve
property taxes on homeowners by
removing education costs from the
home and family farm as
recommended by the McMath
Commission.

The motion, moved by UFAWU
delegate Hal Griffin, also had the
council affirm its support for the
principle that residential property
be taxed only for the services
directly rendered to it.

The real purpose of the current
“tax revolt’ campaign, Griffin
said, is to cut spending on essential
services.

Some 200 people thronged the
entrance to the old post office
to mark the 40th anniversary of;
Bloody Sunday with a com-

memorative rally, chaired by
Jack Nichol (top). Sitdown
leader Steve Brodie (bottom)
addressed the rally.

—Sean Griffin photos

VGH nurses take patient
care campaign to public

Registered nurses at Vancouver
General Hospital continued to take
their case against the hospital
administration to the public this
week as nurses leafletted in
downtown Vancouver and around
the hospital.

The nurses have declared that
patient care at the hospital is
inadequate and have called for

administrative changes to remedy —

the situation. When the hospital
administration refused to address
itself to the nurses’ complaints the

Registered Nurses’ Association of

B.C. voted to take the issues to the
public.

Issues at the hospital came to a

head in May when three senior
nurses were fired by VGH ad-
ministrator Larry Truitt because
of their involvement in a nurses’
campaign for improved patient
care.

Protests over the firings resulted:

in the hospital’s Board of Trustees
launching an inquiry into the ac-
tion and establishing a committee
to look into the nurses’ concerns.
The nurses declared that the
hospital’s response was
inadequate, however, and would

not relieve the serious patient care .

problems.

Conditions at the hospital have
deteriorated to the point the nurses
said, where they are unable to
carry out their professional
responsibilities. Some of. the
problems the nurses list are:

e Nurses are understaffed and at
times are responsible for twice the
number of patients as nuurses in
similar situations in other
hospitals.

e Nurses can be arbitrarily

Minister's statements
‘ignorant and racist’

Continued from pg. 1

Moreover, Mearns said, many of
the young Natives who come to
Vancouver come from the 255
areas outside of Vancouver that
Vander Zalm designated as low
opportunity areas and where
welfare has been cut off.

“Your threats are racist,’’
Mearns charged. ‘‘Because you
single out one racial group for this
unreasonable treatment. It is no
less than amazing that a Minister
in such a responsible position
would stoop to making Native
people the scapegoat in such a
cheap political ploy.”

The proposed relocation of
recipients was criticized as well by
federal minister of health Monique
Begin this week in an address to
the conference of the Canadian

‘Council on Social Development in

Vancouver.

Begin said she was distressed by
the program and characterized
Vander Zalm as someone with a
winner-take-all mentality similar
to “‘cowboy days’’ who “lack a
knowledge of what life is and
people are.”

Vander Zalm displayed his
ignorance of real life when he
added insult to Natives, charging
that young Natives come to
Vancouver because they -are
“attracted to the bright lights and
excitement.’’ He justified the

program as “‘saving”’ young people.

from a life of drugs and alcohol
while in the north they would have
jobs. “‘Northern people are faithful

and look after their own,” he said.-

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—June 23, 1978—Page 2

Those statements brought an
angry response from Mearns who
blasted the minister, stating,
“Obviously, Mr. Vander Zalm, you
choose to ignore the conditions
which exist on most reserves: over
crowding; lack of health and
sanitary facilities; high unem-
ployment, often with the majority
on welfare. About 90 percent of

Native children do not finish high:

school. Unemployment among
Native people ranges from 57

percent at the best of times to 90

percent.
“It is about time, Mr. Vander

Zalm, that you took your job.
seriously. When your government-

has refused to take any action in
creating jobs in this province how
can you on the other hand refuse to
assist the victims of that govern-
ment policy? As for ‘saving’
people from the hazards of
downtown Vancouver you should
be looking at improving the
standard of living in that area.’

Mearns pledged full cooperation
when the government offers
“realistic solutions’ to social
problems, but chastized Vander
Zalm, “threatening to send Native
people back to where most of them
did not come from, will solve
nothing.”’

The relocation program may fall
flat if. Ottawa, which shares in’

social assistance costs, refuses to
support the new program. Con-
sidering Begin’s statements, it
may not, although the federal

minister did not close the door to -

supporting the policy.

assigned to specialized wards for
which they have no experience,
although qualified nurses may be
available.

e Nurses have been forced to
work overtime, rather than Jeaving
a ward understaffed or without
nurses qualified for specialized
wards.

@ Inexperienced nursing
students are sometimes used to
relieve experienced graduate
nurses.

e In-hospital education for
graduate nurses falls short. of that

in other hospitals. There is often no->

orientation training at all for
nurses in highly specialized nur-
sing units.

e Nurses have been instructed
not to discuss nursing care
problems with doctors, an edict
they say is designed to cover up
serious patient care problems.

Nurses at VGH first raised the
problem ‘of nursing care last
September by writing letters to the
administration. Shortly after the
Registered Nurses’ Association
asked health minister Bob
McLelland to investigate the
situation, but he told the nurses to
take their grievances to the
hospital administration.

The Registered Nurses’
Association turned their attention
to the hospital’s Board of Trustees
and in January the hospital an-

_ nounced a new administrative

position, “director of nursing’.

According to. the
however, the new position failed to
meet the problem that there was
not a senior administrative
position concerned with nursing
care. The “director of nursing’’ ,
reported to a “‘vice president of
operations’ and was three steps
below the Board of Trustees. The
director would: have no say over
spending or other important
decisions and would not even oc-
cupy a senior position with an
influential voice. Moreover, the

nurses,”

hospital appointed to the position
Dorothy Babcock, who the nurses
are now demanding be dismissed.

What is required at VGH, the
nurses contend, is a vice-president.
in charge of nursing, responsible to —
the president. Many other
hospitals have similar positions for
qualified nurse administrators.

After the appointment of Bab-
cock in April of this year, abouto 20
nurses at VGH joined in a ‘‘com-
mittee of concerned nurses” and
circulated a petition calling for the
establishment of the vice-president
in charge of nursing positions and a
monthly evaluation of nursing
standards. Three hundred nurses
signed the petition, but VGH ad-
ministrator Truitt replied ‘‘this
hospital does not respond to
petition democracy.”

Early in May the annual meeting
of the Nurses’ Association voted
unanimously to call on the minister
of health to launch an independent
inquiry into the delivery of nursing —
care at VGH.

Soon after the committee of
concerned nurses reported its size
about doubled and counted the
support of the Registered Nurses’
Association and the UBC School of
Nursing faculty. Together with the,
Registered Nurses’ Association the
VGH nurses’ committee formed 4
second steering committee late in
May to press the issue, and then
Truitt moved to fire the three
senior nurses.

In addition to the _ vice-
presidency of nursing and the
monitoring of patient care, the
nurses have now demanded the
firing of VGH administrator Larry
Truitt and of director of nursing
Dorothy Babcock, as well as offers
of reinstatement for the three fired
clinical nurses.

The nurses have asked the public
to support them by writing letters
to VGH Board of Trustees chail-
man Milton Wong, health minister
Bob McClelland, and premier
Bennett.

e

CP organizer appointed

The Vancouver City Committee

-of the Communist Party this week

announced. the. appointment of -
Miguel Figueroa to the position of
city organizer.

Figueroa, 25, is a former staff
organizer for the National Union of
Students and its maritime field
representative.

In announcing the appointment,

‘the CP’s city committee said that

the new position reflects the

party’s intention to assume a more _

public role in the city.

One of the organizer’s main
assignments will be to assist in
preparations for the coming
Greater Vancouver Regional
Convention of the CP, scheduled
for September 23 in Burnaby.

MIGUEL FIGUEROA

TRIBUNE

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Business and Circulation Manager — PAT O'CONNOR

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