Déjà vu of déjà vu: Contract negotiations between Newfoundland and Labrador nurses and province begin this week

ST. JOHN’S, N.L. — At the announcement of a new mission to India to recruit nurses last week, Premier Andrew Furey categorically refused to make any comment regarding upcoming contract negotiations with the province’s nurses’ union out of respect for the collective bargaining process.

His media relations team shut down questions following those remarks.

While it’s impossible to say how negotiations will go, what should be abundantly clear is that it might have serious ramifications for the province’s health-care system.

With reports of overrun emergency rooms and the summertime flurry of rural health-care facility closures across the province, the idea that job action is a possibility is likely to send shivers up some people’s spines.

Can nurses continue working without a clear signal the Newfoundland and Labrador government is committed to solving the problems they’ve been highlighting for years?