BY DANIELLE DIONNE, ASHLEY GRANT, TANYA MILLER, AND MRIDULA MORGAN
HSA MEMBERS 

The BC government is increasing the number of training seats for occupational therapy and physiotherapy, with new seats coming to Prince George, Vancouver and Fraser Valley.

HSA applauds this announcement. These new training spaces are an important step forward to addressing the growing skills shortage in these professions. HSA has been advocating for increased training opportunities in these and other health science professions to ensure our health care system can deliver robust, team-based, and timely care to all British Columbians.

The Health Sciences Association is proud to welcome 31 new health science professionals working at the Canadian Mental Health Association, BC division (CMHA BC), to HSA. Workers were fully united, voting 100 hundred percent in favour of joining HSA.

CROSSTOWN CLINIC AND THE BEGINNING OF SUPERVISED INJECTABLE OPIOID-ASSISTED TREATMENTS
AN INTERVIEW WITH PHARMACIST TWINKLE RUPAREL

Twinkle Ruparel is an HSA member and pharmacist at Providence Crosstown Clinic in Vancouver. Crosstown Clinic is like no other in North America. It is the only clinic on the continent “to offer medical-grade heroin (diacetylmorphine) and the legal analgesic hydromorphone within a supervised clinical setting to chronic substance use patients,” according to the Providence Healthcare website.

Last fall, HSA announced a $3 million Professional Development Fund funded by the provincial government aimed at supporting health science professionals to undertake professional development to increase specialization, improve health care service to rural and remote areas of BC, and meet ongoing requirements for professional development.
 

Health science professionals working in hospitals and communities throughout the province have voted to accept a new collective agreement that recognizes the value of health science professionals on multi-disciplinary health care teams.

HEALTH SCIENCE PROFESSIONALS BARGAINING ASSOCIATION REACHES TENTATIVE AGREEMENT
The Report, December 2018

After two and a half months of bargaining, the Health Science Professionals Bargaining Association (HSBA), under the leadership of the Health Sciences Association, has reached a tentative agreement with the Health Employers Association of B.C. (HEABC).

ADDRESSING YEARS OF EROSION
By HSA President Val Avery

The Report, December 2018

I am pleased to report that a tentative agreement has been reached between the Health Science Professionals Bargaining Association (HSPBA) and the Health Employers’ Association of British Columbia for the term of April 1, 2019 to March 31, 2022.

Community-based voting on the proposed health science professionals tentative agreement gets underway on Monday, January 7, with information meetings and voting kicking off in Vancouver at the Holiday Inn on West Broadway.
 
The first week of meetings will be for members in Vancouver, Kelowna, Penticton, Vernon, Kamloops, Salmon Arm, Victoria, and White Rock.
 

In addition to a general wage increase for all members, this tentative agreement addresses issues that health science professionals have struggled with for the past two decades: valuing the important contributions of each and every member of the health care team, unsustainable workloads, chronic shortages and vacancies of critical members of the health care team, and a dysfunctional system of addressing increasing challenges in health and safety and work. Your Board of Directors recommends you vote "yes."