Discrimination, Abuse and Persecution: Tetyana Melnychuk’s Experience at the University of Northern British Columbia

I would like to share with you some of my experiences of discrimination, abuse and persecution while I was a nursing student at the University of Northern British Columbia.  
 

On January 13, 2010, in one of our clinical practicum placements, Sarah Hanson, my instructor for NURS 315 (mental health nursing - practicum) told me to leave the nursing program and forget about becoming a registered nurse because she was going to fail me.  Sarah justified her decision on the grounds that I was an English Second Language student and a single mother. This threat was Sarah Hanson’s response to me after I informed her about  my inability to log into the mental health computer training system for NURS 315 at the hospital.  As it turned out,  it was not my fault that I could not log in: someone had misspelled one letter in my name.  But Sarah Hanson would not admit that she had been wrong to blame me.  Instead, Sarah Hanson failed me.   I protested, but her action was supported by the lead instructor for that course (Lyle Grant) and by the Chair of UNBC’s Nursing Program, Martha MacLeod.  As punishment for arguing about their decision to fail me, Lyle Grant created a special learning contract for NURS 315 and together with Sarah Hanson forced me (by threats during my clinical practicum) into the “learning contract” which included making me do a module (mini-course) on “communications skills” as one of its requirements and which was not part of this nursing program.  They also distributed their negative views about me to my other nursing instructors, my clinical practicum placements, and my classmates.  They even tried to persuade some instructors in my other nursing courses to fail me.

Repeatedly at UNBC I experienced aggressive and hostile behavior towards me.  This included swearing, yelling and calling me (in a UNBC classroom) a "fucking English second language student." Repeatedly I was shown the middle finger and threatened.  I also received abusive or offensive phone calls at my home.  Those who perpetrated the abuse have now become registered nurses, while UNBC faculty members stood aside and allowed this mistreatment to happen. 

I retook NURS 315 in the fall of 2010 under a different instructor and passed.  I also passed all my other courses until I got to my final practicum, NURS 440 (community health nursing), which I took from February to April 2012.  In fact, I was one of the best students in the nursing program and received some of the highest marks.  However, sometime before the start of NURS 440, Martha MacLeod sent my file -- containing records of my clash with Sarah Hanson and Lyle Grant in NURS 315 -- to my instructor for NURS 440, Khaldoun Aldiabat, a new faculty member lacking job security and with very little experience of registered nursing in Canada.  Initially Khaldoun Aldiabat passed me on my midterm evaluation, but when I returned it to him because he had forgotten to put my surname and satisfactory completion of all assignments on it, he changed my grade to failure, and demanded that I redo the same communications module which Sarah and Lyle had used to punish, humiliate and fail me two years earlier.  When I refused, Khaldoun Aldiabat failed me on my final evaluation, even though the registered nurses who had actually overseen my NURS 440 practicum had all graded my performance as satisfactory.  In addition, Khaldoun Aldiabat accused me of having complained to UNBC faculty about his poor teaching.  (The complaint had actually been made by another student to Martha MacLeod.) Alone among my classmates, I was subjected to an oral final exam of nearly two hours at Northern Health's facility.  All the rest of Khaldoun Aldiabat’s students had their evaluation done by electronic submission of documents.  (In all other nursing clinical practicum courses, when face to face evaluation was done, it only lasted 15-20 minutes, not for two hours as happened in my case.)   Khaldoun never came to watch me or any other nursing student on our practicum.  After the due date of our midterm grades, Khaldoun Aldiabat began changing his expectations for our assignments and failing almost everything I submitted to him.  Khaldoun Aldiabat also warned the nurses who were overseeing my work that I was a special case and asked them to report to him more thoroughly about me than any of the other nursing students and pressured them.  He was rude, aggressive, and displayed his problems with anger management.

In 2010 and 2012 I complained to UNBC’s student union, ombudsperson, Chair of UNBC’s Undergraduate Nursing Program (Lela Zimmer), Chair of UNBC’s Nursing Program (Martha MacLeod), UNBC's Dean (John Young), UNBC's Senate, and the president of UNBC (George Iwama), but they all ignored me.  Moreover, the dean responsible for UNBC’s nursing program admitted to me that I was not the first student left without a degree at the end of UNBC’s program.  Only those UNBC nursing students facing failure who were able to hire a lawyer have been able to gain at least partial redress for their grievances; but I cannot afford a lawyer.  And recently (in 2011), UNBC prohibited its students from having legal representation during the appeal process.  In 2012, even before I submitted my documents for the appeal of my failing grade in NURS 440, I was informed that they would fail me. 

Each year UNBC fails one or two nursing students (out of approximately 100 in this collaborative nursing program) just before graduation.  Most of the graduates complete the program with grades well below mine.  Some have only a C in their theory courses and a bare Pass in their clinical courses.  Note as well that UNBC’s nursing program requires 136 credits to graduate, while Kwantlen’s only demands 125.5 for the same nursing degree.

Failure in this course, NURS 440, meant that I could not graduate with my Bachelor of Science in Nursing.  Failure prohibited me from writing my Registered Nurse exam and receiving my license allowing me to work as a registered nurse.  In turn, that caused me to lose the registered nurse job I had been promised in one part of the hospital.  Now, instead, I owe a huge student debt with no means of repaying it -- or of supporting myself and my child.

I am despairing of obtaining my registered nurse degree and am horrified at UNBC’s ability to get away with its discrimination, abuse, and persecution towards me.  I have simply been brushed off.  A lawyer told me that I definitely need to hire my own lawyer in order to defend my rights against UNBC in court and that mine is a human rights case.  But I cannot afford a lawyer or the other legal expenses which would be associated with a court case against UNBC. Legal Aid assists low income people only for family, criminal, and immigration matters and that kind of help is limited.  They will not provide legal aid to me in my situation.  Almost all pro bono lawyers or student lawyers provide their services only to low income people who live in Vancouver or Victoria.  Moreover, pro bono lawyers only give advice and do not provide representation in court.  And without legal representation, I am unable to defend my rights against UNBC and receive my registered nurse degree.  UNBC ruined my life and that of my child. 

The estimated price of studying in Canada is approximately $20,000 per year. 

 Yours truly,

  Tetyana M.

 Chairs of nursing schools can declare any nursing student “unsuitable” just as a matter of personal  dislike for that person.

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   Here is a part of my final evaluation in NURS 440 performed  by  

                            

                    UNBC's instructor Khaldoun Aldiabat.