A proposed class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of scientific assistants and scientific surgical assistants has been launched towards Alberta Well being Providers.
A press release of declare filed in Calgary Court docket of King’s Bench on Aug. 12 alleges the well being authority has didn’t pay additional time and supply relaxation durations to scientific assistants since 2016.
The declare alleges AHS breached and continues to breach phrases of employment contracts and its responsibility of care to the consultant plaintiff and sophistication members.
Robert Erickson, the lawyer for consultant plaintiff Julia Ionina mentioned he and his shopper are not ready to remark presently.
AHS spokesperson James Wooden mentioned AHS can’t remark because the case is earlier than the courts. On Wednesday he informed CBC Information an announcement of defence had not been filed.
The proposed class motion seeks $10 million usually damages, $85 million in particular damages and $10 million in punitive damages, plus prices and curiosity.
The assertion of declare says the plaintiff and sophistication members found they’d not been paid the additional time and shift premiums to which they had been entitled once they acquired an e mail from AHS on Dec. 23, 2022.
The e-mail mentioned they might obtain a retroactive cost for additional time they’d beforehand labored and would proceed to obtain additional time funds.
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“The defendant maintained that the plaintiff and energetic class members weren’t eligible for additional time regardless of making a partial retroactive cost and paying partial additional time funds to the plaintiff and energetic class members thereafter,” the assertion of declare says.
Not one of the allegations have been confirmed in court docket.
Overseas-trained docs
Medical assistants and scientific surgical assistants are foreign-trained docs who work beneath docs’ supervision in Alberta. Base salaries, in keeping with an AHS web site in regards to the jobs, vary from about $63,000 to $155,000.
Their duties embody conducting bodily exams, writing orders, documenting affected person histories and creating remedy plans with supervising docs.
Ionina, of St. Albert, Alta., labored as a psychiatrist in Russia earlier than immigrating to Canada in 2012.
She began working as a scientific assistant for AHS round November 2015 on the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Edmonton.
Since 2017, she has labored as a scientific assistant on the Sturgeon Neighborhood Hospital in St. Albert.
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Based on the assertion of declare, Ionina is often required to work greater than 50 hours per week, and one week in April was scheduled for 5 15-hour shifts.
From contractors to workers
Medical assistants was contract staff however at the moment are AHS workers.
In 2015, Sarah Hoffman, then Alberta’s well being minister, informed CBC Information that AHS had began the transition after the School of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta raised considerations about how the position was being managed.
A bunch of scientific assistants filed a lawsuit towards AHS in 2015 and accused the well being authority of discrimination.
Jim McFadyen, a lawyer in Parlee McLaws’ Edmonton workplace, mentioned the lawsuit was discontinued.
Medical assistants usually are not unionized in Alberta. The assertion of declare says their phrases and situations of employment are outlined in a handbook, which states that “additional time might be paid for any time labored past common hours of labor.”
The assertion of declare says AHS informed scientific assistants, verbally and in writing, that they’re exempt from receiving additional time funds.
The December 2022 e mail to the plaintiff and a few class members mentioned in keeping with a special doc, which the assertion of declare says has not been supplied to the workers, scientific assistants haven’t been eligible to obtain common additional time funds.
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The e mail mentioned the employees could be paid retroactively for additional time labored since April 1, 2022, and that they might obtain additional time funds going ahead.
Lorian Hardcastle, a College of Calgary regulation professor who makes a speciality of well being coverage, mentioned it’s potential that AHS modified its interpretation of laws or acquired a authorized opinion that prompted the retroactive cost.
“It’s uncommon that with out some change of their understanding of the regulation, they might have simply merely, as a gesture of goodwill, gone and paid folks in a retroactive method,” Hardcastle mentioned.
The assertion of declare says the retroactive cost was solely a partial cost.
Relaxation durations and shift premiums
The assertion of declare additionally alleges AHS failed to permit scientific assistants to take two 30-minute relaxation durations once they labored for greater than 10 hours, that they weren’t paid shift premiums for working sure shifts and that they had been often scheduled to work shifts past 12 hours and typically as much as 24 hours.
The handbook for non-union workers says shifts are to not exceed 15 hours.
“No matter which method this authorized declare goes, I feel Alberta Well being Providers must take critically these considerations that these staff have — that they’re not receiving ample downtime,” Hardcastle mentioned.
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She mentioned there’s a big physique of literature that means drained health-care staff are a affected person security concern.
The assertion of declare says the roughly 228 energetic declare members threat dropping their jobs in the event that they make particular person claims and can’t match AHS’s assets.