The Report

BY DANIELLE DIONNE, ASHLEY GRANT, TANYA MILLER, AND MRIDULA MORGANHSA MEMBERS In May 2019, 31 social program staff at CMHA BC joined HSA. CMHA employees share why they came together and unionized, and what helped them persevere through a sometimes challenging unionization drive. The Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) prides itself on being one of Canada’s oldest continuing charities in...

By Jennifer Edgar, HSA member I write to share what happened when union members at my worksite took action, with support from HSA, to address workload issues in our laboratory. Through working together to collect data, we success­fully challenged the hospital’s method for calculating what constitutes “reasonable work­load,” and we persuaded man­agement to deliver concrete changes that have improved the...

ABOUT SHAI I have be en working at the BC Cancer Agency as a Cytotechnologist for 10 years and in that time, I’ve learned about the union and what opportunities are available to its members. I first became a steward in 2013 and then later trained to be an Occupational Health and Safety Steward. Since then, I have been an...

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...

ADVISORY COUNCIL RELEASES INTERIM REPORT ON NATIONAL PHARMACARE: CONCERNS RAISED OVER FINANCE MINISTER'S PERCEIVED CONFLICT OF INTEREST The Advisory Council on the Implementation of National Pharmacare released its interim report on March 6. The council was established with a funding commitment from the federal government’s 2018 budget, and has been tasked with recommending measures for implementing affordable national Pharmacare for...

As the province undergoes major reform to the delivery of primary care in BC, we have a valuable opportunity to learn from and build off the successes seen in other jurisdictions. HSA has long been an advocate for expanding team-based approaches to primary and community care. They allow health professionals with specialized knowledge and skills to collaborate to optimize patient...

GETTING CREATIVE WITH OH&S EDUCATION SAFETY SCENARIOS, DRAWS, AND JARS By Kiren Klair and Kristen Honeybourne The Report, December 2018 As Occupational Health and Safety (OH&S) stewards at Inclusion Langley Society, we have taken on the challenge of developing some fun approaches to promoting OH&S at our worksite. While the impacts of OH&S awareness often go unseen, our educational and...

THE RIGHT TO STRIKE:POSTAL WORKERS LEGISLATED BACK TO WORK, CONSTITUTIONAL CHALLENGE LAUNCHED The Report, December 2018 In a disturbing turn of events, Bill C-89 was passed on Nov. 26 in the Canadian Senate, forcing postal workers to return to work after five weeks of rotating strikes. The emergency bill was rushed through the House of Commons the week earlier, with...

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). “Through two and a half months of bargaining, both the union and...

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. I’m proud of our bargaining team and their...