Red Deer’s hospital may no longer have to divert emergency surgery patients, but emergency department nurses continue to be overwhelmed with no relief in sight, says a local representative with United Nurses of Alberta.
“They’re ending up closing large portions of the department because they don’t have staff to staff it,” said Susan Beatson, president of Local 2 of the UNA, and an assistant head nurse at Red Deer Regional Hospital Centre.
She said the department currently has 55 nurses and 13 vacant positions to fill, along with a float pool of 14 nurses with three vacant positions. Last week some nursing positions were posted as part of a new initiative that shortens the hiring process, but Red Deer must still compete with other hospitals in Alberta and across the country for applicants.
“We can’t continue to stretch the staff as we are because they can’t do it. It’s at a real crisis point down in emergency, but not just emergency. They brought in agency nurses for some of the other units.”
She said the problem is that the hospital’s nursing staff was reduced to the bare minimum in recent years so there’s not enough staff to cover vacations, sick leaves, or training. Meanwhile, Alberta Health Services is reminding staff to take time off to re-energize.
“I don’t know who that’s going out to because nurses can’t get any time off. People are just calling in sick they’re just so at the end their rope,” said Beatson about staff who are too physically and emotionally exhausted to work.
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She said the emergency department is still struggling despite the end to surgical diversion.
“It’s not surgical patients backlogging emergency. It’s traumas and it’s the medical patients, the sick, sick medical patients that are requiring admission and there’s no admission beds.”
She said once people have been treated in Red Deer there is nowhere to send them.
“As a referral centre, they’re staying with us because the rural hospitals are in the same boat and don’t have the staff or the room to take people back so it just bottlenecks throughout the whole hospital, and it bottlenecks down in emergency. They’re running a full in-patient unit down there of patients waiting for beds, and people don’t stop coming into emergency.”
Between April 29 and July 4, a total of 149 general emergency surgeries were diverted from Red Deer’s hospital due to staffing and other issues.
Other patients who needed emergency surgeries, were medically unstable for transport, and those needing scheduled general surgery procedures continued to be supported in Red Deer. During the diversion, 332 general surgeries (both urgent and scheduled) were completed in Red Deer.
Comment from Alberta Health Services on the UNA’s concerns was unavailable on Monday.
Related:
Nurses at Red Deer hospital under pressure
szielinski@reddeeradvocate.com
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