July 14, 2000
VALERIE G. CONNELL
Nunatsiaq News
IQALUIT — A crippling shortage of nurses is forcing the Baffin Regional Hospital in Iqaluit to cut back from 18 to as few as 12 beds for in-patient care, Jennifer Pearce, the hospital’s nurse manager for in-patient care said this week.
"If I took one resignation today, we would have to shut down more beds," she said.
Low levels of pay and the high cost of housing in Iqaluit are the two major reasons for Iqaluit’s continuing shortage of nurses, Pearce said.
"Girls very unhappy with situation. Some are actively looking for work elsewhere," Pearce said."[The] job market for nurses is open world-wide. In Canada, they can get jobs anywhere."
Last year, the Nunavut government enriched nurses’ pay and benefits packages with beefed up signing bonuses and pay increases, but that hasn’t been enough, apparently, to persuade more nurses to stay in Iqaluit.
"The low pay and $1100 a month rent make it not worth it," said one nurse, who prefers not to have her name published in the newspaper for fear of retribution from her employer. "It’s not worth it to me."
She also said she never says no when asked to come in to work overtime hours, because she said she knows it’s needed.
Crushing overtime
Meanwhile, the remaining nurses at the Baffin Regional Hospital are working 12-hour shifts with the possibility of working overtime after that in order to deal with the day-to-day care of patients, Pearce said.
"I have had nurses work 14 days straight," she said. One worked 12 hours, was supposed to get off at 7:30 a.m., and didn’t get off till 2 p.m. in the afternoon, an 18-hour shift.
"They come willingly, they’re a good bunch of girls," Pearce said. "You can see exhaustion. [They’re] at point where they’re really tired."
Right now, the hospital has 11 nurses and two on vacation. Of the hospital’s five certified nursing assistants, four CNAs are temporary and one permanent, Pearce said.
There are limitations to the types of care that CNAs can provide compared with nurses, she said.
"[We] should have 18 nurses and two CNAs," she said.
Pearce said the busy period started in April and had to stop last week when a decision to cut back from 18 to 12 beds was made.
"There are lots of people due to have babies soon so we’re trying to prepare for that," Pearce said.
Recruitment still a problem
Recruitment is a problem, Pearce said. She said she has interviewed 10 nurses for the second floor in two months. She said job interviews goe fine until levels of pay and the cost of housing come up.
"Lots of nursing hours goes into that, four hours for each interview," Pearce said. "And we didn’t get anything in the end."
Pearce said she is needed to work on the floor, so she has to take home administrative work at night or come in to work Saturdays and Sundays to get it done.
"[It’s] too bad, a great place to work," she said. "You can learn so much."
With its current nursing shortage, the hospital is not able to operate with the same number of beds, said Keith Best, the Baffin region’s interim executive director for health and social services.
"Normally when say ‘closed,’ it means ‘not going to open again,’ " Best said. "Right now, 12 beds is a reasonable load given the nurses available."
Elective surgeries have been cancelled, and patients who are discharged have to come to the out-patients department for treatment, Pearce said.
She said there are vacancies in the OPD as well. "They have two vacancies and that’s a lot in a small department."
Daily meetings
Best said there are administrative meetings held daily to look at the numbers of nurses, physicians and patients in-house.
One day there may be 12 beds, on another day, 15.
"Recruitment is ongoing," Best said. "Recruiting is very difficult. We’re trying every avenue we can."
Pearce said that she was one of 12 nurses who left the Baffin Regional Hospital in 1998 when rents and cargo rates increased.
Although she returned to Iqaluit in March, Pearce said that since that time, the hospital has not fully recovered from the loss of those 12 positions.
In October of 1998, Nunatsiaq News reported that the Baffin Regional Hospital cut services back from 34 beds to 18 because of staff shortages caused by inadequate pay and benefits for nurses. Elective surgeries were cancelled at that time as well.
Before the 1998 closures, a fully staffed hospital would normally employ 34 nurses — 27 on the wards and seven in the outpatients department.
That dropped at the time of the 1998 closures to 25 — 20 on the wards and five in the OPD.
"It’s very frustrating — you know you don’t have enough people to do what’s got to be done," Pearce said.
Picco still working on recruitment
Nunavut’s health minister, Ed Picco, said competition for nurses across Canada is extremely high
"It’s no secret Ontario is spending $1.2 billion and hiring 10,000 nurses, and the U.S. is very actively recruiting nurses in Canada," Picco said.
But Picco said he understands the stresses faced by the over-worked staff who have remained at the BRH.
"Our nurses are dedicated professionals who I just can’t thank enough. I am thankful for work that our nurses put in and we know it can’t continue. That’s why were trying every possible way to recruit nurses."
Picco says people in his department are working 12-hour shifts to recruit nurses.
He also said that a working group on the recruitment and retention of nurses that he set up last year has provided him with 20 recommendations that he is now looking at.
Picco said Nunavut now has the second highest paid nurses Canada. "But our benefits package may be lacking and that’s what we have to address," he said.
Next week, Picco is to attend a meeting of Canada’s health ministers in Ottawa. At previous meetings, Canada’s health ministers have called on Ottawa to restore the Canada Health and Social Transfer to 1994-95 levels as a precondition for fixing the country’s ailing health care system.
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