Enough with the empty words. Now is the time for Doug Ford to honour nurses who have risked their lives during this pandemic by making us equal with the other, male-dominated front-line workers like the police.
Jess Gakuba, a registered nurse, on a provincial law that limits wage increases.
Systemic racism exists.
I learned of it as I came to my new home in Canada, and all of a sudden I had a new identity: a Black woman who later became a registered nurse and was now on the front lines during COVID-19.
In the past few months, these major systemic issues that have long been embedded in our society have come to the forefront in the midst of this pandemic.
But the final straw is Ontario government’s Bill 124, passed last November, which limits wage increases for nurses — and all provincial public servants — to 1 per cent.
And while there are calls to defund police departments for their racist practices against Black and Indigenous people, they’re exempt from limitations on wage hikes since they are employed by municipalities and not the province.
In my field, Ford’s Bill 124 is an attack on women in particular, who make up the majority of the workforce of registered nurses. It tells us, during a time of sacrifice to save Ontarians during this pandemic, that they deserve a wage increase that is below the rate of inflation.
There is a real public safety issue, looking at the already existing serious nursing shortage and its impact on hallway medicine. This only makes it worse.
We are essential workers and therefore we have to care for the sick and most vulnerable in our society.
We’ve been proclaimed heroes at home and around the world. We leave
our families at home every shift, uncertain about what will happen at work and live in the fear of bringing COVID-19 home.
When soldiers go to war they know there is a possibility of getting injured and even losing their lives.
Nurses are in the business of saving lives, and though we don’t go in to work expecting to die, we face uncertainty and an overwhelming dread.
On some days at work we are just silent, utterly speechless and unable to imagine what is to come.
But we keep showing up for our patients, we keep conserving the PPE, we keep saving lives. We rise up because we care.
More than the disregard for us frontline heroes, this is an attack on the voiceless, like Black people.
On top of being underpaid as a woman and a front-line worker, cries for Black lives are met with more funding for the police as Black people, Indigenous peoples and other minority communities continue on in poverty and injustice.
Even when police brutality toward Black people dominates the news cycle, we’re not allowed to thrive.
Enough with the empty words. Now is the time for Doug Ford to honour nurses who have risked their lives during this pandemic by making us equal with the other, male-dominated front-line workers like the police.
Abolish Bill 124, redistribute funding to police, shake up the discriminatory system, fund poor communities and create real programs to help families in at-risk neighbourhoods, youth and elderly.
Nurses have endured wage freezes and unsafe working conditions. Black people have been disproportionately targeted and killed by police. Women are consistently undermined and underpaid for the work and risk compared to their male counterparts.
As a Black registered nurse, I am asking for change. Change the systems that keep the disadvantaged and poor down.