Nurses picket outside NRGH calling for improved nurse retention and workplace safety
Published 1:30 pm Monday, July 13, 2026
UPDATE: The B.C. Nurses’ Union have announced that bargaining has resumed between the Nurses’ Bargaining Association and the Health Employers Association of B.C.
As a result, all picket lines will come down at the end of the day on Tuesday, July 14.
A ban on nurses performing non-nursing duties and a restriction on overtime remains active by the union.
PREVIOUSLY POSTED: Health-care workers took to the picket line on Monday outside Nanaimo Regional General Hospital, as the B.C. Nurses’ Union have expanded protests to different hospitals across the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island.
The B.C. Nurses’ Union began a strike on July 2, with 98.2 per cent of more than 50,000 nurses voting in favour of job action. The main call from the union is for the provincial government to bring “a meaningful general wage increase and solutions that improve nurse retention and workplace safety.”
“We have reached a critical point in this dispute,” Adriane Gear, BCNU president, in a press release earlier this month. “Nurses have bargained in good faith, and we’ve taken measured job action while maintaining essential services to protect patient safety. The provincial government can end this dispute. It can provide health employers with a mandate that retains nurses, strengthens public health care and prevents further disruption. We are calling on government to act.”
Gear was present in the morning at Nanaimo, joined by Gear by Erin Ariss, Ontario Nurses’ Association president, and Danielle Larivee, United Nurses of Alberta first vice-president.
Essential services are planned to remain throughout the job action, the union stated.