Vancouver Coastal Health suspends controversial employee absence program

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – Vancouver Coastal Health has suspended a controversial program designed to reduce absences among nurses and other hospital employees.

Since being introduced in 2008, the Attendance and Wellness Program required employees taking more than the average number of sick days off within a month to meet with supervisors to explain why they had taken so many days off, and how to make changes in their lives to avoid absences in the future.

Back in 2013, the health authority was instructed to remove an aspect of the program, which enabled Coastal Health to deny overtime or even fire those with higher-than-average absences. That was after grievances were filed by Hospital Employees’ Union, the Health Sciences Association, the BC Government and Service Employees’ Union, the Canadian Union of Public Employees and the United Food and Commercial Workers.

But the revamped policy continued to rankle unions, particularly the BC Nurses Union.

The union’s acting president Christine Sorensen says her members have resented having to justify their absences.

“Nurses found the program intrusive, an invasion of their privacy. They felt intimidated. Often, there were punitive threats, like if your attendance doesn’t improve, something will happen.”

She stresses their members shouldn’t feel bad about taking sick days.

“They need to take sick time when they are sick. They should not be attending work and potentially spreading infections to patients. They have a professional responsibility to stay home if they’re unwell.”

Full time nurses get 18 sick days a year.

In a statement, Vancouver Coastal Health says it is looking at other ways to address absences.

“We strongly discourage our staff from coming into work if they are ill. Our Attendance and Wellness Program was designed to be a supportive and preventative approach for those who take more than average sick time. Through a review of the Employee Wellness Program we determined there may be better ways to support our staff, so we have put the program on hold and are reviewing how we can best support them through their illness.”

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