A nursing association says London’s largest hospital has again launched an offensive against those who speak out against changes they say harm patients, this time enlisting a lawyer to threaten nurses hosting a public meeting Friday in London.

“(This) is a blatant attempt to intimidate (the Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario) into staying silent on matters of interest to our members and the public. We recognize it as a bullying tactic and we will not be influenced by it in any way, shape or form,” Doris Grinspun, chief executive of the nurses’ association, wrote Thursday to Murray Glendining, chief executive of London Health Sciences Centre, and hospital board chair Tom Gergely. The Free Press obtained the letter.

In June, the nurses’ association accused Glendining of trying to buy the silence of the hospital’s chief nursing officer, Vanessa Burkoski, who came to London after being the longest-serving provincial chief nursing officer, advising three Ontario health ministers.

When Burkoski, who had been a president of the nurses’ association, refused to take a payout and resign quietly, she was fired, Grinspun says.

Now the hospital has filed defamation lawsuits against Burkoski, Grinspun and the nurses’ association and its lawyer has sent a threatening letter to the new president of the association, Carol Timmings, who will be in London Friday to speak with nurses, Grinspun said.

“Your preemptive threat of legal proceedings against Ms. Timmings in your lawyer’s letter of October 11, is baseless, abusive, and oppressive ... We will not be stifled, silenced nor suppressed, by LHSC or anybody else,” Grinspun wrote.

“It is shocking that LHSC is using public funds to pay a private law firm to engage in an aggressive campaign to silence public discussion on important health-care issues.”

In the letter to Timmings, lawyer Michael Polvere of Siskinds wrote, “While we encourage all honest and fair debate on the issues, defamatory and untrue statements made of and concerning our client, the LHSC, will not be tolerated and will be met with swift action. The LHSC intends to hold both RNAO and yourself personally responsible for the conduct of this meeting.”

At the 6:30 p.m. meeting at Wolf Performance Hall in the Central Library, Timmings will lead discussion on a nurses’ association report that claims cash-strapped hospitals are cutting registered nurses and replacing them with less qualified and lower paid staff to the detriment of patients.

“These (changes) are detrimental to Ontarians, to nurses, and to the future of health and health care in Ontario,” conclude authors of the report Mind the Safety Gap in Health System Transformation: Reclaiming the Role of the RN.

No one should be muzzled from discussing key health issues and LHSC’s efforts should be addressed by Ontario Health Minister Eric Hoskins, Grinspun said.

Hoskins couldn’t be reached for comment Thursday. Nor could officials at LHSC. Earlier this year, Glendining refused to comment publicly on Burkoski’s firing but defended the hospital in internal memos that insisted that the nurses’ association had told a one-sided story and that safety was always a priority.

jsher@postmedia.com

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