A small business owner in downtown Windsor is baffled by Capital Health’s decision to award a $500,000 medical uniform contract to a company in New Brunswick.
Heather Donohue, of HENS uniforms, says business started slowing at her shop on Gerrish Street in April 2011, when it became clear a new uniform policy was in the works that would require members of the Nova Scotia Nurses’ Union (NSNU) to buy new scrubs.
What wasn’t clear for months, however, was what those new scrubs would look like — and who would supply them.
“Nobody knew what they were going to be able to wear… so they just stopped buying,” Donohue said in an interview from her shop.
She said the uniform contract negotiations made it difficult to order stock for RNs, LPNs and nurse practitioners. By December, she had noted a 90 per cent decline in the sale of medical scrubs from the previous year.
To cope with the lost revenue, Donohue says she had to layoff one full-time employee, and demoted another worker to a casual position.
