Thank you.
My remarks will focus specifically on infection prevention and safety in the health care system.
It appears that, with the exception of Ontario, the provinces and territories are set to follow the Canadian pandemic guidelines, which are based on occupational health and hygiene, not safety. If the federal government releases and accepts these as they are currently drafted, and the provinces and territories accept them verbatim, a nurse in Ontario will be better protected than the other nurses across our country. This is not the message our members or the public want to hear. They want to know that all levels of government are taking all possible precautions to eliminate, and where that is not possible, to minimize, the risk to health care workers.
Let me remind the committee, and I'll quote from its website, that the Public Health Agency of Canada was created for “clear federal leadership on issues concerning public health”. As a nurses' union, we think the Public Health Agency of Canada is setting a gold standard for public health concerns generally. We need the same clear leadership in annex F, which is on employee personal protection. If PHAC cannot provide this leadership because of so-called jurisdictional issues around workplace occupational health and safety, we believe that silence from the federal government would be better than the lowest common denominator.
We feel strongly that the use of occupational health and hygiene as opposed to occupational health and safety downplays the legitimate work and concern in the field of occupational health and safety, that is, workplace and employee-focused safety. If safety standards are used for firefighters, miners, and police officers, they must also be the standards used for nurses and other health care workers. As reported by the SARS Commission, the precautionary principle generally impacts worker safety.
We can have a battle of words, and let me tell you, we've been having it--researcher X said this and researcher Y said that--but what we all agree on is that the evidence is not clear. What we have learned from SARS is that it's too dangerous to wait for conclusive science before deciding on protective measures. Therefore, while scientific debates persist, we have to exercise the precautionary principle: be safe, not sorry.
Another example of our disbelief in the direction PHAC is taking in annex F are the tools suggested to determine that a health care worker is at risk. An employee is required to navigate through four separate tables, which is very confusing and inefficient. If we simply applied the precautionary principle, we would have health care workers equipped with N95 respirators when in a room or in an area with a patient who has an influenza-like illness during the pandemic. There's no need to navigate through a maze of confusing guidelines. There's no need to place that on a nurse who will be working at 4 a.m., when most everyone in Ottawa will be sleeping. She will be there to defend her own safety and the safety of her patient. We will not accept this.
This doesn't mean that everyone in a hospital needs to wear an N95. Let's be clear. We can determine who actually needs respirators by conducting risk assessments.
Let me remind you that of the 251 probable cases of SARS in Canada in 2003, 247 were from Ontario. Of these probable cases, 77% were exposed in the health care sector. Two of our members died there. Health care workers made up half of these cases.
Ontario has incorporated the precautionary principle in occupational health and safety in its pandemic influenza plan. We urge you to protect health care workers and to make SARS the lesson for national lessons. If PHAC won't do it, nurses will.
Merci beaucoup.