Nancy Halupa was sitting with her coworkers at 3 am, almost eight hours after her 12-hour shift, when a colleague looked at them and said what many were feeling: that they had never seen a “group of nurses defeated.”
“I was like, ‘Yeah, we’re done,’” says Halupa.
Halupa, a registered nurse who works in an emergency department in Toronto, said she has never felt so demoralized in her 23-year career.
“I can’t even explain to you how difficult it is to get up and go to work these days.”
The latest blow came in the form of a directive from his hospital’s network, which Halupa asked the Star not to name, which said nurses should go to work if they are asymptomatic but have had “significant exposure to COVID-19.” , even -Risk contacts or family members who show symptoms, under what is called “self-isolation from work”.
It’s one of a number of similar measures being enacted in different hospitals as nurse healthcare systems across Canada try to deal with the Omicron variant.
Dr. Donald Vinh, an infectious disease specialist at McGill University Health Center, says that all Canadian provinces will likely face similar options in the coming days as the number of sick people rises and the number of workers available for work decreases. treat them.
“We are at a fixed and limited number of health workers in each province, because there is no pool or pool of health workers that we can depend on to rescue us here,” he told The Canadian Press this week. .
Halupa sent a copy of the directive he received, updated through Wednesday, to the Star. It presents a list of return-to-work scenarios and procedures.
One scenario says that staff who have a family member experiencing symptoms but who are asymptomatic themselves can continue to work by following self-isolation guidelines, which involve actively wearing appropriate personal protective equipment and self-monitoring.
Another scenario makes it clear that if staff experience symptoms, they should notify their supervisor, get tested, report their absence and symptoms to the COVID-19 call center, and isolate themselves at home while they await PCR test results. They can only return to work when authorized by the call center.
Halupa said he feels the network is encouraging nurses to work until it is effectively impossible to do so, rather than being cautious.
“‘We are prioritizing the personnel problem we cause, under your responsibility.’ That is what they are saying, ”he added. “We need our staff fixed, so we are going to punish him for something we caused.”
Halupa said the patient-to-nurse ratio has increased from four patients to one nurse to five patients per nurse where she works.
“The floors are understaffed and the ICU is full … We are full because we don’t have nurses, that’s what people don’t understand. Then you will enter a hospital and you will see empty beds, but that is because there is no one to work (on the patients), ”he said.
Vicki McKenna, provincial president of the Ontario Nurses Association, calls the nurse shortage “a crisis.”
“It was happening and it was predicted to happen before COVID,” he said. “We knew that the numbers were a problem.”
McKenna said a month or six weeks ago he would have said there was a 15 to 18 percent nurse vacancy rate in Ontario hospitals. Now, he said, it’s closer to 20 to 24 percent.
Doris Grinspun, executive director of the Ontario Registered Nurses Association, agreed that Ontario’s nurse shortage is a long-standing problem, but said the pandemic has brought it to a breaking point. The increase in cases due to Omicron in the last month has increased the pressure.
In addition, he said that nurses have left Ontario due to unfavorable working conditions and the dispute with the Ontario government over Bill 124, which limits salary increases to a maximum of one percent of total compensation for three years.
“It’s not just because of Omicron… one is the duration of the pandemic, 22 months now, so people are getting more and more exhausted. Number two, employers and many organizations, if you get sick they don’t pay you. Third, nurses are fed up with Bill 124 … and they don’t feel respected, ”Grinspun said.
In a statement, a spokesman for the Ontario Ministry of Health said the province is working to safeguard the province’s hospitals, primarily by vaccinating people.
“In the face of the rapidly spreading Omicron variant, the Ontario government is rapidly accelerating the rollout of its booster dose by expanding eligibility to all individuals 18 years of age and older, as well as shortening the interval to three months after the second dose of a person, ”said spokesman Denis Murphy.
The Ontario ministry said there are approximately 740 ICU beds available immediately with nearly 500 more available for increased capacity.
Raywat Deonandan, an epidemiologist and associate professor at the University of Ottawa, said asking nurses to continue working even after being infected with COVID-19 may be “unavoidable” in the near future.
“Since we are facing a huge healthcare worker crisis, and I don’t see any way around it, you may have to mobilize medical students and nursing students as well,” he said.
Deonandan said that if a person is asymptomatic, they are probably not spreading much virus. If they wear a properly fitted N95 mask, in an environment where there is good HEPA filtration (High Efficiency Particulate Absorption) and they are careful not to be around people, he said he thinks the risk is low.
But the key is that these nurses should not be in contact with patients who are not infected.
“We have to keep you away from vulnerable people. And it is very well served to work in the COVID room, because those nurses are not going to be infecting people recently. Therefore, these people have a role to play, but the thing to watch out for is the asymptomatic nature. That is critical. Once you are symptomatic, I think all bets are off. The risk is too great. “
Birgit Umaigba, a registered nurse who works for an agency in the Toronto area that provides nursing services, told the Star that she was working Wednesday in an ICU where there were nine nurses for 22 patients, adding that normally an ICU should have a. patient-nurse relationship to one.
“And then five nurses from the agency came in. So almost half of the staff most of the time are agency nurses, which is crazy, “he said.
Before the pandemic, she said that work was not always available to the agency’s nurses. But now there is a great demand.
“Sometimes I didn’t even get a turn. Now I could have a schedule set up if I wanted to. That’s how much they trust us, ”Umaigba said.
Halupa, meanwhile, reported sick Wednesday after she woke up with a severe headache and chills. She believes she may have contracted COVID-19, as she was working with several babies Monday night who were infected.
“It could just be a simple cold. But the anxiety every time I get sick is just horrible. And this last fifth wave has been the worst for me. I feel like I’m doing everything I’m supposed to do and it’s like you can’t protect anyone… honestly I’m broken, ”Halupa said, her voice cracking on the phone in her home, where she was isolated.
Halupa is not paid for sick days because she is considered temporary staff, even though she works full time and has more than 20 years of experience. It is a scenario that is common in Ontario.
Not only is the shortage affecting nurse morale, it is having a ripple effect throughout the hospital system, Halupa said.
The emergency department is seeing more acute care patients, because there is nowhere else to put them. In some cases, doctors are helping nurses with certain tasks, such as removing IVs and completing necessary blood tests and paperwork, Halupa said.
Halupa said the most important message to get across to the public is that nurses “are not the bad guys.”
“Nursing is the most trusted profession in the world. People literally give you their children and let you go. And yet they call me vile names because of a pandemic that I did not cause, ”said Halupa.
“Yelling at me and threatening to call your attorney because we don’t allow unvaccinated visitors doesn’t help. It’s just taking us down. “
Reference-www.thestar.com