Nurses from across the country gathered at the TELUS Convention Centre in Calgary from June 5 to 9, to hear speakers talk about workplace violence and other issues at the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions (CFNU) Biennial Convention.

Among the safety-related topics discussed at the convention were violence on the job, the effects of nursing overtime, working in conflict zones and absenteeism resulting from illness or disability, according to a series of news releases from the federation. The event brought in more than 1,200 nursing professionals from all over Canada, the CFNU stated.

The convention included the releases of two new reports, one about safe patient care and workplace violence, the other on the costs of overtime and absenteeism. Enough Is Enough: Putting a Stop to Violence in the Health Care Sector, released on June 8, revealed that 61 per cent of surveyed nurses had experienced violence, verbal abuse and/or racial or sexual harassment at work at some point. About two-thirds of respondents claimed that they had considered changing occupations.

“We know that the cost of workplace violence in Ontario hospitals alone is $23.8 million annually,” said CFNU president Linda Silas in a press statement. “These funds would be better invested in patient care and safety for both our patients and our nurses.

“Enough is enough,” she added, calling for a “zero-tolerance approach” to violence in the healthcare sector.

Another report, prepared by Jacobson Consulting Inc. on the CFNU’s commission, stated that overtime and absenteeism in the Canadian nursing sector cost the industry nearly $2 billion last year. The total paid and unpaid overtime of registered nurses was more than 20 million hours in 2016, or the equivalent of more than 11,000 full-time nursing jobs over the same period, revealed the report, also released on June 8.

“Safe nurse staffing levels would reduce the system’s reliance on both paid and unpaid overtime for nurses and would help to reduce absenteeism,” said Silas.

A June 6 presentation by Captain Stephanie Smith, a nurse with the Canadian Forces, and Leonard Rubenstein, with the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, examined the dangers of nursing in conflict zones.

“Over the past 20 months alone, attacks on medical facilities have occurred in Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria and South Sudan in violation of international law,” explained Silas, who called for “the Canadian government to ensure that humanitarian workers have the right to provide care for people in need.”

The CFNU represents nearly 200,000 nurses and nursing students across the country, according to information from its website.