Staffing shortages causing bed closures: Notley, UNA

“In our own local hospital, there are 14 beds closed, eight of which are post-surgical beds. There are 14 empty registered nurse lines on this surgical floor,” says Mealey. “The regular running capacity for our operating rooms is six, open every day. On a good day we are running four, and sometimes three if we don’t have the anaesthesia staff.”

Macdonald says with the current nursing shortages at the QEII, it’s going to be a big challenge to maintain a level of service when operations are moved to the Grande Prairie Regional Hospital.

“The physical footprint and layout of [GPRH’s] in-patient units is very different from the [QEII], there’s a lot more dispersal of patients because every room is a private room. So nurses are going to have to really scramble to keep up and provide the appropriate care and it’s going to be a challenge to be able to staff that facility and still provide the care given the staffing shortages we’re experiencing,” says McDonald.

“If we can’t staff the QEII and we can’t staff our rural hospitals and we can’t staff our home care offices and our public health centres and all the other services that are available in our communities, how are we going to staff that bright shiny new building?”

Referring to recent temporary closures of Emergency Room operations in Fairview and McLennan due to staffing shortages, Mealey says people have been forced to travel outside of their normal boundaries in order to seek health care, which puts further burdens on the facilities where the patients are eventually taken, as well as on the patient’s own wellbeing.

MacDonald says more needs to be done to attract and retain nurses and health care professionals to not just Grande Prairie, but Alberta as a whole.

“There’s a lot of different options for nurses out there and we could end up seeing a huge brain-drain of highly experienced nurses with years of experience under their belt being taken away,” he said.

“In the meantime, we’re not seeing enough new nurses or other health care professionals coming through, so it’s going to be challenging to provide services to the people.”

Mealey says the shortages put a heavy strain on the current nursing staff, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“At the end of the day, nurses make everything work, we do without for so long and we catch those holes, but at the end of the day, all the holes in the swiss cheese line up, and we can’t cover everything. Things fall through and we have no support.”

She adds these shortages have a trickle down effect that negatively impacts the health of the community as a whole, a sentiment that Notley echoes.

“The current level of operating and surgical capacity is not being used by Albertans right now because we don’t have the staff to even cover [the needs]. It sounds like we’re running at about two-thirds capacity in terms of surgical work being done in the current situation.”

MacDonald also says not having health care properly supported can impact the economy.

“Nurses buy vehicles, they buy appliances, they buy houses or their families do. During the downturns in the oil patch, many times nurses were the only wage earners in their households because their spouses were maybe laid off or had reduced hours, so this is a huge impact on the local economy.”

Notley acknowledges that the province is under financial strain, but she says making these cuts will not lead to prosperity.

“Government needs to be playing a stimulative role in the economy, and by growing the economy you then grow the tax base and you then find the revenue to start paying down the deficit and reducing the deficit.”

She also agrees with MacDonald and Mealy in the claim that health care workers being fairly paid, even if above what nurse make in other province, goes back to the local economy.

“When they have money in their pockets, they contribute directly to the economy, directly to the local economy, which then creates a larger tax base.”.

Meanwhile, Premier Jason Kenney was asked during an announcement in Camrose Thursday about ongoing collective bargaining negotiations between Alberta Health Services and UNA, which currently has the province requesting UNA members to take a three per cent wage rollback.

Kenney said while negotiations are ongoing, he does not believe nurses are going to leave for other provinces en masses if wages were rolled back.

“I wouldn’t agree that people would move from Alberta to receive lower pay in other provinces, and to pay higher taxes. That wouldn’t add up,” Kenney said. “We have more nurses working in Alberta’s health care system today than ever before in our history.”

The province says nurses in Alberta currently earn 5.6 per cent more than any other province in Canada.

by Liam Verster

Staffing shortages causing bed closures: Notley, UNA

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