From June of last year the average Saskatchewan weekly income is up by 4.6%
Thirty-five percent over four years. That`s the deal that nurses accepted in a vote held yesterday.
It must have been a combination of poor wages compared to other provinces, along with the high demand for nurses in Saskatchewan, that allowed SAHO to offer the 35% wage increase. The most senior nurses will be earning around $88,000 a year, not including overtime, in four years.
Everyone knows that nurses have a difficult job and need to be paid accordingly. We also need enough nurses to keep the hospitals and care facilities running.
In the coming years we will need to face the reality that medical costs are not going to slow down and we will need to keep coughing up more and more tax payer dollars to keep the system running. Unfortunately, it seems that the medical care people are receiving is taking longer while the costs skyrocket.
Nurses still have other concerns such as working conditions, recruitment and retention, but in the end, it seems that money talks and the nurses don`t walk.
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