Along with hiring more staff and opening more beds, Saskatchewan Union of Nurses president Tracy Zambory says the government needs to do more to support nurses on the front lines.
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As president of the Saskatchewan Union of Nurses, Tracy Zambory has kept a close eye on the provincial government’s action plans to address hospital capacity and serious overcrowding problems in Saskatoon and Regina.
On Thursday, the Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) provided an update on how those plans are progressing, pointing to 156 new staff hired and 206 treatment beds opened. Integrated Saskatoon Health vice-president John Ash said the changes “are making an impact on the capacity pressures we’ve seen.”
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But when Zambory compared Thursday’s announcement to the stories she says she is hearing from nurses working in Regina and Saskatoon, she said it “did not track at all.” So far, she added, the hospital capacity action plans have “not translated at all to the front lines.”
While she is glad new community treatment options and long-term care beds are opening up, Zambory says nurses working in the province’s largest hospitals are still telling her that “things have gotten worse, particularly in our emergency rooms.
“There are a massive amount of people in the emergency rooms that are ‘admit, no bed,’ which means there is nowhere in the hospital for them to go because the beds are full,” Zambory added.
“And because there are people in the hallways, we have ambulances that get backed up.
“I’m hearing from the nurses that it’s just chaos. Every day is chaos. You can’t continue and continue and continue to work like this.”
When Zambory looked at the number of staff the SHA is planning to hire as part of these action plans, she also had questions about how these numbers were being counted. She wonders if at the end of the day, will this actually put more staff on the roster to help lift the load?
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“Particularly the Saskatoon (announcement), those were recycled positions,” Zambory said. “All they’re doing is taking part-time people and sliding them over to full-time positions, or taking temporary positions and making them permanent.
“It’s nothing that we’re going to see any change to the front line, any time soon.”
Along with hiring more staff, opening more beds and diverting people who don’t actually need hospital care to community treatment options, Zambory says there are more steps the government could be taking to support nurses. She says there needs to be more incentives for mid- and late-career nurses to stay in Saskatchewan, for casual or part-time employees to take full-time jobs, and for new graduates looking for stable jobs close to home.
“We need to make sure all graduates have full time work in this province,” she said. “That’s how we’re going to stabilize the nursing workforce in this province.”
But perhaps most importantly, Zambory said, nurses need to know that they are “actually having a conversation that is true and real and something comes of it,” as the health authority continues to tackle hospital overcrowding.
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On Thursday night, after the hospital capacity action plan update, the health authority held a closed town hall for emergency department staff at St. Paul’s hospital to speak with SHA leaders. A similar town hall is set to take place for RUH staff in early April.
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