Nurses at seniors' homes without contract as employer association loses its leader

The former CEO of the New Brunswick Association of Nursing Homes has declined to comment on his sudden departure from the position just a few months after he took on the job.

The news that Norman Bossé had stepped down came suddenly, after the nurses union announced it's filing a complaint because of contract delays.

On Monday, the New Brunswick Nurses Union announced it has filed a complaint about the nursing homes group with the Labour and Employment Board. The basis of the complaint is an almost three-month delay in ratifying a membership-approved collective agreement for nurses working at nursing homes.

On the same day, the nursing home association said its new CEO, Bossé, had left the position.

On Tuesday, a person answering Bossé's phone said he is not taking calls. An email sent to Bossé also went unanswered.

Former CEO returns

To fill the gap, past interim CEO, Michael Keating, has come out of retirement. Speaking to Radio-Canada, Keating said he was not able to explain the delay in ratifying the collective agreement for nurses.

"It was like an emergency this morning," Keating said, "and now I'm trying to find out about everything that's going on."

"I'm not going to say anything because I don't know."

Bossé worked as the child and youth advocate and was New Brunswick's seniors' advocate before he took on the CEO job at the nursing home association earlier this year.

In January of this year, while still working as the seniors' advocate, Bossé released a 38-page report looking into the care provided by a nursing home and a subsequent investigation by Social Development's Adult Protection into the death of a man in his 90s after assaults by a fellow nursing home resident.

"What we found was a wide array of failings ranging from the nursing home's inability to protect residents from harm and under-reporting of major incidents, to an Adult Protection investigation that did not take measures to ensure that all relevant and pertinent information was obtained and reviewed," the report says of Bossé's probe that began in February 2021.

Delay could result in nurses leaving

Union representatives said the nursing association's delay in ratifying a new contract, which would improve working conditions, could mean more nursing home workers would leave their jobs.

The union says nurses working in nursing homes negotiated a new collective agreement with the association and the membership approved it back in February.

Keating said the nursing home association will have an answer for the union by Friday.