Ontario hospitals are faced with the sad reality of a nurse shortage.
Conditions of overwork and exhaustion predate COVID-19, but the pandemic has only exacerbated these problems. Additionally, Bill 124, introduced in 2019, discourages nurses by limiting salary increases. Many nurses have said repealing the bill would go a long way toward retaining nurses. Others say that removing barriers for internationally trained nurses would help fill the gaps.
The Star spoke with eight nurses, some still working in the field and others who have left, to hear what they had to say about the state of their profession.
Birgit Umaigba, RN, Intensive Care Unit
Birgit Umaigba is an agency nurse that fills the gaps in hospitals in the Toronto metropolitan area that are understaffed. He works mainly in the intensive care units of two hospitals.
She says what is happening in nursing is a “state of emergency,” one that has been brewing for years.
“These problems have always been here, we just weren’t talking about them,” he said. Umaigba, who has worked as a nurse for five years.
Umaigba considers herself a precarious worker as an agency nurse with no access to benefits or paid sick days. Beyond that, she also says there is a lack of support for nurses in her position. “I go to different hospitals, so we are considered outsiders.”
For Umaigba, part of the solution is to repeal Bill 124.
“We cannot afford to keep losing experienced nurses. It’s not about recruiting new graduates, it’s about retaining experienced nurses, ”he said.
Another part corresponds to nurses trained abroad. As a clinical instructor, Umaigba has taught programs for internationally trained nurses. She says the obstacles they have to overcome to practice in Canada are numerous and that more must be done to help “close the knowledge gap.”
“They have the experience, they have the knowledge, they just need to know the psychosocial piece, the cultural aspects and know how to use the equipment,” Umaigba said. “But there are a lot of them driving Uber or working at Walmart … instead of using their skills to help with shortages.”
Leah Waxman, RN, Emergency Room
Leah Waxman is a full-time nurse who works in the emergency department. He has been in the profession for 11 years and eight in emergency. It says that the situation and working conditions of nurses within the hospital have progressively worsened during the pandemic.
“We had a first wave of nurses who left due to COVID. And then we have the second, third and fourth waves of nurses leaving, just because (due to) being understaffed, ”she said. Waxman, co-founder of the advocacy group NurseWithSign416. “We have been running in a vacuum.”
Waxman noted that while some new nurses are leaving, it is the nurses who have been leaving forever that is of great concern.
“If you are an emerging nurse, your spectrum of what you can do and what you know will take years to learn. And you know, you can’t just replace that with a new nurse. “
Waxman continued: “We are on the verge of collapse. I think if things don’t change and if the public doesn’t stand up and make a change right now while the nurses take a stand, the public health system will collapse. “
Waxman said that the repeal of Bill 124 would be a show of support for nurses from both the government and the public.
“That would be a great first step. And then depending on what goes from there, after (repealing) the bill, the nurses could go back to the profession. (And maybe) the nurses wouldn’t leave.
Nancy Halupa, Registered Nurse, Emergency Room
For Nancy Halupa, who has worked in the emergency department for 23 years, retaining the existing nursing force is crucial.
Halupa says that now that so few veteran nurses remain, they are unable to accept new hires or graduates under their wings, causing them to be “thrown to the wolves.”
“I feel sorry for them because (the new nurses) will burn out,” he said. Halupa, who along with Waxman, co-founded the advocacy group NurseWithSign416.
Emergency room departments are not operating with the proper nurse-to-patient ratio at this time due to staffing shortages, according to Halupa.
“In a situation of (cardiac) arrest when the patient needs to be connected to a ventilator, we need a nurse to do the medications, we need a nurse to do the records, we need a nurse to do the access to the port, such as catheters and help the doctor with a central line. We need another nurse to bring us the medications and mix them, as most of our medications are not premixed, ”said Halupa.
“And then, God forbid, the patient goes into cardiac arrest, we need bodies to do CPR. You can only do compressions for two minutes before you have to tap because it is tiring. And then it starts to become ineffective, so someone else has to disconnect. And we just don’t have the manpower anymore. “
Sara Fung, RN, Master of Nursing
Sara Fung works as a specialist in professional practice, home and community care. She has worked in nursing for almost 14 years and held positions as a bedside postpartum nurse and a nurse in the neonatal intensive care unit. She is the co-host of a podcast, “The brave nurse, ”Where he addresses some of the problems of the profession.
“We’ve been in a situation in healthcare where it’s been cutting, cutting, cutting for so long that a lot of nurses don’t even know what safe staff-to-patient ratios look like,” she said.
“I have never worked in a single unit in any hospital, where we are not constantly understaffed … We are not designed to serve more than four patients at a time in certain areas and we are constantly told that this is the expectation, and it just becomes in a vicious circle. “
Amie Archibald-Varley, RN, Master of Nursing
Amie Archibald-Varley, who has been a nurse since 2010 and co-host of “The Gritty Nurse” with Fung, said calling nurses “heroes” during the pandemic was more of a matter of policy than a true reflection of how nurses felt. .
“We were drowning. We were scared and terrified, ”said Archibald-Varley, who works as a quality and patient safety specialist. “I think there would have been a different name that the nurses would have chosen for themselves instead of (frontline heroes).”
Jennifer Maddigan, Former Registered Nurse, Emergency Room
After working 20 years in the emergency department, Jennifer Maddigan resigned in June. He now works in vaccine clinics as well as dental offices administering IV sedation.
“It came down to one particular day in February,” he said. Maddigan. “We had a patient who came in and unfortunately he didn’t make it. It was a very sudden and very difficult death for the family. And I sat there and I was so exhausted that I couldn’t give them the appropriate and well-deserved empathy that they needed right now. “
That was the moment Maddigan knew that regardless of her skill level as a nurse, her “empathy was gone” and she felt she was “not good” at caring for a patient. Maddigan was tired of leaving work feeling unable to do her job properly.
“When you go home every day thinking, I gave you 150 percent, however, I was only able to provide about 50 percent of the care that I know I am capable of due to understaffing, due to the infirmary in the hallways – (the) overall morale is non-existent “.
Sophie Brindamour-Durocher, former full-time registered nurse, emergency room
Sophie Brindamour-Durocher worked as a nurse in the emergency room for 17 years and three years ago became the unit coordinator in her hospital’s emergency department.
“I left because I felt that the department itself was not the image of what I was used to, I did not feel that it was a safe environment for patients and even for us as nurses,” said Brindamour-Durocher, who has now gone from a full-time role to a casual one.
He says he would have stayed if there was better support for nurses and better pay.
“I knew that no matter what I was doing, it wasn’t enough,” Brindamour-Durocher said. “The ship was already sinking”
Marida Etherington, former hospital nurse who works in acute mental health
Marida Etherington quit her job as an acute mental health care nurse in March 2020, just as the pandemic broke out.
Etherington had worked with SARS and felt she had to quit her job to keep her family safe during the pandemic. Now he has started two private nursing companies.
Etherington agrees that the pandemic has compounded problems within the profession. She says nurses are working with less and trying to do more because patients are sicker.
“When nurses toast and care, who is turning to the nurse? You hear reports that the ICU has x number of short nurses. They take care of really sick people. And what if the nurse is wrong? If your workload has doubled or tripled, how is one person supposed to carry that load? And how long can a nurse take that? “
Nurses have always been at the forefront of healthcare, but never more critical than during the COVID-19 crisis. In this ongoing series, we explore the many issues that plague nursing.
Reference-www.thestar.com