2021 will see an increase in healthcare workers leaving SHA | The Canadian News

From January to September this year, 10.5% more Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) staff left the organization than in the same period a year earlier, according to a spokesperson.

In a statement provided, SHA Media Relations Officer Amanda Purcell said that “while we cannot speak to the specific reasons involved, we can say that we continue to see more staff leaving the SHA since the onset of the pandemic.” .

The statement also mentioned an internal survey conducted last year in which two-thirds of respondents (the overall response rate was 38 percent) agreed that colleagues were experiencing burnout. Purcell said the 2020 survey, conducted months and multiple waves of COVID-19, is the most recent information collected related to exhaustion and fatigue.

“We know that the pandemic presents us with an unprecedented situation and that our staff members are fatigued,” Purcell added, noting that SHA has made a variety of mental health supports available to staff in person and online.

4:41Nurses leaving the medical industry en masse

Dr. Jeremy Katulka, a Saskatoon-based ICU physician, says he’s already witnessing the effects of burnout firsthand.

“We don’t allow people to drive trucks or fly planes every day without resting. Continuing to run a system outside of its normal parameters causes security incidents to occur, ”said Katulka.

“We have already had critical incidents for patient safety, quality markers like line infections are much higher than they should be, and I think that’s just a reflection of the fact that we are out of operational parameters. insurance from our ICUs. “

However, Katulka refrained from making specific suggestions on measures to prevent residents from ending up in the hospital in the first place.

“We can’t house 200 critically ill patients in Saskatoon, or rather Saskatchewan, this winter, that’s impossible. We will not be able to handle that amount of patients without evacuating them to other provinces or without implementing triage, ”he said.

SEUI-West President Caper added in a press conference called Thursday that members of the union’s healthcare workers are “holding on to their fingernails right now.”

“I think what you are going to see when the chaos of this pandemic is gone is that people are leaving in droves. I’ve heard anecdotally from other healthcare leaders who are hearing the same from their members. And another thing that I think we should turn our minds to is that when we emerge from this pandemic, the impact on the mental health of those still in the health system will be significant. “

Purcell added that “SHA does not support the dissemination of misinformation that casts doubt on the severity of COVID-19, the validity of the science of this pandemic, and the effectiveness of COVID vaccines.”

“This type of communication feeds conspiracy theories and misinformation, and is not only offensive, but dangerous. We encourage the public to seek valid sources of information on COVID-19 and vaccines, such as through the Government of Saskatchewan’s COVID-19 website or the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC). “