With many people fearing a strike will affect health care along the South Shore and elsewhere, nurses in the Halifax area have walked off the job today to back their demands for better patient-nurse ratios. Hundreds of nurses with the Nova Scotia Government and General Employees Union are picketting all health care facilities in HRM. Although her union isn't part of the labour dispute, Nova Scotia Nurses Union President Janet Hazelton tells us Friday's likely passage of essential workers legislation will probably mean the walkout will last only through today. She says there is a lot of frustration for nurses everywhere and anxiety for patients heading into today's walkout.
NDP leader and former Health Minister Maureen MacDonald says she's appalled the dispute between Capital Health and the NSGEU has reached this point.
The largest hospital complex in Atlantic Canada, the Q-E-2 Health Sciences Centre in downtown Halifax, is among facilities being picketted today by the nurses.
