The unavailability of registered nurses for three separate 12-hour shifts in the last week led to the temporary disruption of service at the Shaunavon Hospital and Care Centre.
As a result, the hospital was closed from 7 p.m. to 7:30 a.m. overnight on both Tuesday and Wednesday, as well as 7 p.m. on Monday (Feb.20) to 7:30 a.m. on Tuesday (Feb. 21).
No emergency outpatient services or acute admissions were available at the Shaunavon Hospital during those time periods. However, long term care and community-based programs and services were not affected.
A shortage of registered nurses has caused temporary closures at the hospital on several occasions during the past year, although health officials are hopeful that the problem might be resolved in the near future.
A full time nurse, for instance, was hired for the Shaunavon facility before Christmas and last week local health officials were interviewing a registered nurse from out of province who was interested in relocating to Shaunavon.
The health region is also currently in the process of orientating a grad nurse from the area who has expressed an interest in staying in the Southwest once she has completed her schooling. (The student has already written her final exams and is just waiting for the results.)
Right now, there is one permanent registered nurse “line” (rotation or position) that needs to be filled at the Shaunavon Hospital and Care Centre.
However, the health region would also like to add more casual nurses to its staff.
“Finding enough casual staff is a challenge that everyone is being faced with across the region, province and country, and it’s a challenge that has been ongoing in Shaunavon for awhile,” said Bryce Martin, Cypress Health’s Executive Director of Communications. “We just don’t have enough casual staffing depth.”
Martin credited current staff members for covering many of those unfilled hours in the past, but that there are times in the schedule when no one is available to work all the shifts.
“The existing permanent staff have also picked up casual shifts,” explained Martin. “They’ve done everything that they can and sometimes more to make sure the facility stays open. But we don’t want staff members working 80 hours a week. That’s a ridiculous request to make, because we’ll just burn those people out and then we’ll have an even bigger problem.”
Martin praised current staff members for keeping the temporary disruptions at the hospital to a minimum level.
“The number of times where we’ve had to disrupt service due to the unavailability of nurses for any given 12 hour shift - when compared to the number of 12-hour shifts that we have in place for the hospital in the course of the year - is relatively small,” said Martin. “Do we want to have that number at zero? Absolutely. But in other communities - not only in the region but in other parts of the province - the problem has been much worse. There are other communities where they have suffered disruptions for months on end because of a shortage of physicians or registered nurses.”
Along with the promise of having two strong potential nursing candidates interested in positions at the Shaunavon Hospital, the health region is also continuing its active recruitment campaign using a variety of resources.
“Ultimately, we want to get to the point where we have enough staff to make sure there are no disruptions of service,” said Martin. “That’s what the community wants and that’s what we want.”