Health-care staff in B.C.’s Interior are being overwhelmed by the twin emergencies of persistent wildfires and rising COVID-19 cases, and some of them are leaving their jobs because of it.
Multiple nurses and doctors who spoke to CBC News said roughly two-thirds of emergency room nurses at Royal Inland Hospital in Kamloops had left their job in recent months due to stress and burnout.
“I would genuinely say that the situation is dire on a daily basis,” said one emergency room nurse whom CBC News agreed not to identify. “There are currently about 24 empty positions in our emergency department. I know several nurses who are considering leaving the profession or quitting nursing because it’s not worth their mental health.”
The nurse said they personally feel they are “in over my head” and constantly worry they are going to cost a patient’s life because the workload is too much to handle.
“If a fourth wave [of COVID-19] does hit and hits hard, we would not be able to accommodate that.”
Staff from other parts of B.C. asked to help
Meanwhile, two internal memos viewed by CBC News confirm other hospitals in the region are over capacity and in need of additional help, even asking people from other parts of the province to volunteer to come help.
The first, which was sent out by Interior Health on July 13, indicated the Vernon Jubilee Hospital had declared “virtual code orange” with the 196-bed facility counting 236 patients — or 120 per cent capacity — as the wildfire risk in the region increased. Code orange in B.C. means “disaster.”
The second, which has been circulated on social media, was distributed to health-care staff on Vancouver Island on Aug. 18. It asked health-care providers willing to be deployed to Interior Health to sign up with the province’s Emergency Health Provider Registry.
That registry was created during the wildfire season of 2017 to make sure staff can be deployed to health regions in need of help during emergencies.
BREAKING: Restrictions introduced in the Central Okanagan earlier this summer have been expanded to the rest of B.C.’s Interior in response to rising cases of COVID-19 throughout the region. <a href=”https://t.co/7ad0lyzfKK”>https://t.co/7ad0lyzfKK</a>
On Friday, Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry acknowledged the stresses being felt in the Interior “as we are dealing with the displacements of peoples across the Interior Health region due to the ongoing wildfire situation,” adding, “It has strained resources in a number of communities,” including Nelson, Vernon and Kamloops.
However, she said she would not call the situation “dire.”
B.C. Health Minister Adrian Dix said asking staff to volunteer to be deployed to other health regions reflects an “extremely serious” wildfire situation in B.C., as patients and people living in long-term care in communities under evacuation alert are moved around the province, putting additional strain on staff.
“What we’re seeing in some hospitals is real pressure,” he said. “It’s something we do on a regular basis, which is to seek people to support the regions.”
Royal Inland Hospital at breaking point: doctors
However, Scott Duvall who represents the Thompson/North Okanagan region for the B.C. Nurses’ Union, said the problems in Kamloops go beyond a short-term emergency or routine staffing shortages.
Instead, he said, it’s a systemic failure that is impacting Royal Inland Hospital’s ability to recruit and retain new employees.
“I recently spoke with one of our recent new [nursing] grads from Thompson Rivers University,” he said. “She said that a large percentage of those that graduated with her are choosing not to go to Royal Inland because of their experience there [as students].”
Emergency room doctor Henk Van Zyl said the staffing shortages he’s been observing at Royal Inland are unsustainable, particularly for nurses who often bear the brunt of the extra work.
“We’ve had nurses leave their shifts crying. We’ve had nurses feeling that they can’t tolerate it anymore. They’re feeling that their job is at risk because they can’t provide good medical care,” he said. “When people lose faith that [this problem] is going to be resolved … then it becomes even more difficult to recruit new nurses, because who’s going to come when you know that the working environment isn’t conducive to a good lifestyle?”
If a fourth wave [of COVID-19] does hit and hits hard, we would not be able to accommodate that– Emergency room nurse at Royal Inland Hospital in Kamloops
Roger Parsonage, interim vice-president of clinical operations for Interior Health North, said recruitment is the health authority’s No. 1 focus as a streamlined hiring process is rolled out to attract new employees to the region.
In the meantime, though, emergency room physician Dr. Keith Hutchison warns the situation at Royal Inland Hospital is the worst he’s seen in his 32 years there. The repercussions of this summer could be felt for years to come, he said.
“We’re losing 25 to 30 per cent of our emergency nurses,” he said. “That’s huge.”
HALIFAX – The Nova Scotia government says it could be months before it reveals how many people are on the wait-list for a family doctor.
The head of the province’s health authority told reporters Wednesday that the government won’t release updated data until the 160,000 people who were on the wait-list in June are contacted to verify whether they still need primary care.
Karen Oldfield said Nova Scotia Health is working on validating the primary care wait-list data before posting new numbers, and that work may take a matter of months. The most recent public wait-list figures are from June 1, when 160,234 people, or about 16 per cent of the population, were on it.
“It’s going to take time to make 160,000 calls,” Oldfield said. “We are not talking weeks, we are talking months.”
The interim CEO and president of Nova Scotia Health said people on the list are being asked where they live, whether they still need a family doctor, and to give an update on their health.
A spokesperson with the province’s Health Department says the government and its health authority are “working hard” to turn the wait-list registry into a useful tool, adding that the data will be shared once it is validated.
Nova Scotia’s NDP are calling on Premier Tim Houston to immediately release statistics on how many people are looking for a family doctor. On Tuesday, the NDP introduced a bill that would require the health minister to make the number public every month.
“It is unacceptable for the list to be more than three months out of date,” NDP Leader Claudia Chender said Tuesday.
Chender said releasing this data regularly is vital so Nova Scotians can track the government’s progress on its main 2021 campaign promise: fixing health care.
The number of people in need of a family doctor has more than doubled between the 2021 summer election campaign and June 2024. Since September 2021 about 300 doctors have been added to the provincial health system, the Health Department said.
“We’ll know if Tim Houston is keeping his 2021 election promise to fix health care when Nova Scotians are attached to primary care,” Chender said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
ST. JOHN’S, N.L. – Newfoundland and Labrador‘s chief medical officer is monitoring the rise of whooping cough infections across the province as cases of the highly contagious disease continue to grow across Canada.
Dr. Janice Fitzgerald says that so far this year, the province has recorded 230 confirmed cases of the vaccine-preventable respiratory tract infection, also known as pertussis.
Late last month, Quebec reported more than 11,000 cases during the same time period, while Ontario counted 470 cases, well above the five-year average of 98. In Quebec, the majority of patients are between the ages of 10 and 14.
Meanwhile, New Brunswick has declared a whooping cough outbreak across the province. A total of 141 cases were reported by last month, exceeding the five-year average of 34.
The disease can lead to severe complications among vulnerable populations including infants, who are at the highest risk of suffering from complications like pneumonia and seizures. Symptoms may start with a runny nose, mild fever and cough, then progress to severe coughing accompanied by a distinctive “whooping” sound during inhalation.
“The public, especially pregnant people and those in close contact with infants, are encouraged to be aware of symptoms related to pertussis and to ensure vaccinations are up to date,” Newfoundland and Labrador’s Health Department said in a statement.
Whooping cough can be treated with antibiotics, but vaccination is the most effective way to control the spread of the disease. As a result, the province has expanded immunization efforts this school year. While booster doses are already offered in Grade 9, the vaccine is now being offered to Grade 8 students as well.
Public health officials say whooping cough is a cyclical disease that increases every two to five or six years.
Meanwhile, New Brunswick’s acting chief medical officer of health expects the current case count to get worse before tapering off.
A rise in whooping cough cases has also been reported in the United States and elsewhere. The Pan American Health Organization issued an alert in July encouraging countries to ramp up their surveillance and vaccination coverage.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 10, 2024.
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