An Ontario arbitrator has ruled that Sue McIntyre, a North Bay Regional Health Centre nurse who spoke about workplace violence at a nursing conference in Kingston, should get her job back.
McIntyre was fired after being quoted in a Ontario Council of Hospital Unions (OCHU) media release following the 2016 conference, but in his decision arbitrator Bram Herlich said he found “no plan or intention to initiate a media campaign to sully the hospital’s reputation” and that she should be “reinstated to her employment without loss of benefits or seniority and with full compensation,” according to a Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) release.
Herlich added that there is “broad acceptance that workplace violence is prevalent in the hospital sector” and that the comments made by nurses in the OCHU release mirror concerns expressed in Ontario Hospital Association documents and the New England Journal of Medicine.
The arbitrator’s decision comes more than two years after North Bay regional dismissed McIntyre, one of several nurses who participated along with other nurses in a panel-type discussion at a conference organized by the Ontario Council of Hospital Unions, the hospital division of CUPE.
According to CUPE, all 150 registered practical nurses from across Ontario who attended the January 2016 conference on violence in Kingston reported they had been assaulted at work.
Read more about the 2016 conference | Read CUPE’s release on the arbitor’s decision
