Nurses Association warns that cuts could be coming

Nursing cuts that have hit hospitals hard in southern Ontario have had little or no effect at the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre.

But they could be coming, warns an Ontario Nurses Association official who made a Monday stop in the city to kick off National Nurses Week.

Vicki McKenna, a vice-president with the ONA, said the key is to ensure the province funds health-care properly, something she doesn’t think it’s doing well at this point in time. Despite record-breaking provincial deficits being racked up by the Ontario government, health care has to remain a priority, and nursing levels must grow, not dissipate.

"The reality is that this is a primary health-care right that we have as Ontarians," McKenna said. "We have a right to adequate health care, and it needs to be a No. 1 priority. That isn’t to say that there aren’t other things that are very important as well.

"We’ve all had to tighten our purse strings and be careful … But we can’t lose sight of the fact that because the economy continues to struggle that we cut health care."

In Thunder Bay, she continued, the biggest problem seems to be the availability of replacement nurses to fill staff shortages when a scheduled RN calls in sick.

It’s a daily occurrence at the hospital, which does its best to maintain a 4:1 daytime ratio of patients to nurses, a number that drops to as low as 8:1 overnight.

"What we do know, and what the research clearly shows is that for every patient added to a nurse’s workload, there is an increase in morbidity and mortality rates. What that means is that patients don’t do as well and that they tend to stay in hospital longer and their outcome isn’t as great, which means their recovery isn’t what it should be.

"And unfortunately death rates rise," she said.

Late last month provincial NDP Leader Andrea Horwath told the Canadian Press that Ontario’s health services were suffering because of cuts to nurses, pointing to a government panel that recommended dropping 121 RN slots in Peterborough.

The suggested cuts were brought forth because of the provincial mandate that health-care facilities not be allowed to run deficit budgets, said Health Minister Deb Matthews in response, calling it a management problem, not a revenue issue.

Hospital vice-president and chief nursing officer Rhonda Crocker-Ellacott said TBRHSC said the institution has perhaps been managing its bottom line a little better than other facilities across the province.

"I think we’re trying to really work hard to reduce things like overtime and things that don’t add value to our care," Crocker-Ellacott said. "By coming up with new and innovative approaches to deal with short staffing, to deal with patient care needs, I think hopefully in time we’ll be able to prove that this is a better approach at managing resources, rather than just cuts to service."

Some of the local hospital’s solutions include the creation of resource teams for critical care and surgery that Crocker-Ellacott said they hope will respond to gaps in care and create a better nursing environment for both patients and families.

Both McKenna and Crocker-Ellacott said an aging nursing population, which averages 47 province-wide and 42 at TBRHSC, could be the biggest challenge facing nursing numbers in the immediate short term.

"We’re sitting in a bit of a precarious situation with not knowing what will happen in the next months to come," Crocker-Ellacott said. "We need to make sure we work closely with our staff so we don’t end up with a real shortage situation."