Simone Smith
Canadian Frontline Nurses are a broad and diverse group of Canadian nurses from across Canada who are sending out this urgent declaration to the Colleges of Nurses of their various Provinces and Territories and to the public at large, whom they serve.In December 2020, Ontario’s College of Nurses (CNO), the governing college, issued a statement to its nurses.The CNO sent this letter to its members to ensure their expectations were being met when it comes to adhering to public health protection measures. The letter issued a statement forbidding nurses from freely questioning any or all official measures being imposed in response to Covid-19. The CNO then went on to threaten nurses with punishment – investigations and disciplinary action.
They regard this recent statement of the CNO to be unethical, anti-science, and deeply disturbing. As nurses, their primary duty of care is not to the CNO or any other authority, but to the patients, they care for. When they became nurses, they made a personal promise to themselves to always put their patients first and that their ethical and professional duty is always first toward the patients under their care. They believe that they have a moral and ethical duty to follow their four ethical principles of; benevolence, non-maleficence, justice and autonomy, which supersedes all policies made. The CNO statement has ordered them to violate their duty and pledge to their patients in the following ways:
1. Denial of the Scientific Method itself:
2. Violation of our Code of Conducts:
3. Violation of Duty of Informed Consent:
The questions readers must ask themselves are:
Why are the nurses being told to follow rules blindly without asking questions?
Why are they being asked to violate the duty and pledge they have made to their patients?
There is something going on that is not being discussed openly, and the people of Ontario must demand answers. For information and to sign the declaration, visit them at https://www.canadianfrontlinenurses.ca/declaration.
