Metis nurse going to court

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A Metis nurse who lost her job in a dispute over whether she was allowed to perform the same duties in urban and remote Native community clinics is going to court.

Joyce Atcheson, who lost her contract position with Fort McMurray clinic last

year, has filed a lawsuit against the Alberta College of Physicians and Surgeons.

"They have to be held accountable for their actions," Atcheson said in a telephone interview from the city 500 km northeast of Edmonton, where she has been working for the last four years.

"The college says I can continue practicing if I stay in the Native community for the rest of my life...That's a double standard."

In court documents, Atcheson claims the governing body for the province's doctors forced her employers to break her contract for performing tasks like taking X-rays and pap smears.

The 44-year-old registered nurse said the tasks that got her fired in Fort McMurray are the same tasks she performed during the 10 years of working in remote Native community clinics.

Don Chadsey, deputy registrar of the college would not comment about the pending lawsuit. "It's gone into the legal arena and I am not prepared to comment," he said when contacted by Windspeaker.

Nurses working in Native community clinics are governed by federal laws, which are different from the rules governing work in clinics and hospitals run by the province. Under federal law, nurses working in areas where there are no doctors can take over some special medical tasks if they have the right training.

Since losing her job in Fort McMurray, Atcheson has been working on a federal contract in Garden River, a 300-member Native community about 800 km north of Edmonton.