A hospital in Clinton, Ont., temporarily closed its emergency department from Saturday to Monday and a hospital in Kingston, Ont. reduced weekend urgent care center hours to consolidate staffing in its ER, with both facilities citing shortages of doctors and nurses for the move.
In Perth, Ont., the local Perth and Smiths Falls Regional Hospital site closed its emergency room on Saturday, with plans to keep it closed until Thursday as already stretched staff deal with an outbreak of COVID-19.
“It’s unprecedented for our community,” Dr. Alan Drummond, an emergency physician at Perth Hospital, said in an interview.
“There’s this perfect storm coming down on us — increasing the volume of sick patients with reduced resources to respond.”
The Perth hospital has seen emergency room nurses drop from 15 to five in recent months, said Drummond, who also serves as co-president of public affairs for the Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians.
When two nurses recently contracted COVID-19, the Perth ER was forced to close temporarily, he said. Administrators said last week that the hospital was in a “staffing crisis”.
Ontario is grappling with health care workforce shortages as workers leave hospital roles or the profession after more than two grueling years on the front lines of the pandemic, say organizations representing nurses, doctors and public hospitals in the province.
“The understaffing is (due to) attrition and people leaving,” said Ontario Nurses Association President Kathryn Hoy.
“But why they burn out is because they come in for an eight- or 12-hour shift and stay 16 hours. Sometimes they stay 24 hours.”
Hoy said she has heard from nurses who reported that emergency rooms are temporarily staffed with one nurse to cover 30 patients, some hospitals with dozens of empty ER seats and patients being cared for in hallways.
“A nurse can’t be everywhere,” she said.
The nurses’ union wants the government to expand fast-track programs that help registered professional nurses become registered nurses, as well as reduce waiting times for internationally trained nurses to obtain their licenses, Hoy said.
The Ontario Hospital Association said staff shortages and capacity issues are creating delays across the hospital system, with an increased number of patients waiting for home care as well as a large number of patients in acute care beds who do not need those resources.
Workforce shortages appear most acute in critical care and emergency departments, the association said, with most of rural and northern Ontario.
“The situation in these communities continues to be fragile,” OHA President and CEO Anthony Dale said in a written statement.
Ontario had 609 registered nurses per 100,000 residents in 2020, according to data compiled by the Canadian Institute for Health Information. This was significantly lower than the statistics for Alberta and Quebec.
Meanwhile, the time patients spend in emergency rooms is at a 14-year high, except for this January, the OHA said. Ambulance discharge times — how long it takes for a hospital to pick up a patient from paramedics — are at a 12-year high, he said.
The Ontario Medical Association said the government should consider creating specialty centers that focus on specific surgeries or procedures to help ease hospital burdens.
“We know that health care doesn’t work in an election cycle,” said Dr. Samantha Hill, a past president speaking on behalf of the association. “We need to … commit to more progressive systems design and more progressive health care plans.”
A spokesperson for the Ontario Ministry of Health said the province is working to strengthen workforce capacity, including with one-time retention bonuses and funds to recruit nurses to target areas across the province.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published on July 5, 2022.
