Part-time and casual staff have been called to work to raise resources amid “staffing challenges” at the Health Sciences Center in Winnipeg, a Shared Health spokesperson said in an email Saturday. Those already scheduled to work were asked to work overtime, and some critical care nurses were reassigned. The Winnipeg Free Press reported Friday that HSC’s emergency department had to close about half its beds Friday because of a shortage of nurses. “I’ve been practicing for over 20 years. I’ve never seen this,” said Dr. Doug Eyolfson, an emergency room physician. “To my knowledge, this is the first time this has happened in Winnipeg, with closures of this magnitude and so many beds closed due to lack of staff.” Emergency physician Dr. Doug Eyolfson says he’s nervous about returning to work after a heart attack in July because of the state of health care in the province. (James Turner/CBC) The emergency department was down to only eight nurses a shift, far short of the 24 needed to fully staff a shift. “The number of beds is always a function of how many nurses there are to look after them. Basically, if there’s no nurse to look after a patient in the bed, it’s just a piece of furniture,” said Eyolfson, who was the Liberal MP for Winnipeg riding of Charleswood-St. James-Assiniboia-Headingley from 2015 to 2019. He is concerned that the health care situation across the province will worsen because the numbers of COVID-19 cases are expected to increase in the fall. “As a society, people somehow think that COVID is gone and that the pandemic is over. It’s not over,” Eyolfson said. “We’re still seeing people coming into emergency with COVID, people … having to be admitted to the ICU with COVID. And we’re also seeing staff members basically having to call in sick because they had symptoms.” All this means the staff goes through a lot, he said. “People are desperately tired, frustrated, scared and burned out.” Darlene Jackson, the president of the Manitoba Nurses Association, echoed Ejolfsson’s concerns. “This is probably the worst we’ve had in two years and I don’t see it getting any better,” she said in an interview Monday. More nurses are leaving the public health system and looking toward retirement than are entering the profession, she said. “I think the most important thing that employers and this province can do is to retain — they need to keep every nurse in this system … and they need to keep those nurses in the system until we can bolster our system with new graduates,” Jackson said. A Shared Health spokesman says nurse staffing challenges will continue to be “significant” next week, but not as severe as they were over the weekend. Twenty-four nurses worked shifts on those days and others extended their shifts. “Shared Health will continue to work to fill various staffing holes in the same manner as it has for the past several days. This includes staff contacts, offering overtime, managers working on the floor to support patient care, and redeploying nurses from other areas, such as intensive care,” the spokesperson said in an email Monday afternoon. Health Minister Audrey Gordon says she is working on a plan to deal with staffing issues at the Health Sciences Centre. (Randall McKenzie/CBC) Health Minister Audrey Gordon acknowledged Monday that the province’s health care system “faces many challenges.” He said he is working with Shared Health to create a plan to address staffing shortages, from training additional nurses to having paramedics or physician assistants there to help triage patients. Shared Health added that it is working to recruit and retain nursing staff with new mentoring programs, creating a provincial float team and financial incentives to increase the number of shifts nurses work each week. Gordon said she is grateful to the staff who helped out this past weekend, but acknowledged the work has taken its toll. “Our healthcare heroes are tired and feeling the pressure of increased admissions to our emergency departments. Shared Health and WRHA are certainly aware of these pressures and these increased wait times,” he said at a news conference in Steinbach announcing a new kidney unit at Bethesda Regional Health Center; “The pandemic has reinforced and revealed some gaps, some obstacles and challenges that we have to overcome.” Eyolfson, who went on medical leave after suffering a heart attack in July, plans to return to work in October or November, depending on his recovery. “I’m worried about the working conditions I’m going to find, but, you know, all I can do is go and see my patients, give the best medical care I can, and that’s all anyone can ask for. .”
