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Staffing shortages at the region’s largest hospital has meant even the sickest patients are getting less treatment and monitoring than they should be, a London intensive care nurse warns.
The nurse is not being identified because she fears job reprisals for speaking out.
“Someone needs to say something,” the ICU nurse told CBC News. “The pace at which things have gotten worse is scary.”
Two years ago, London Health Sciences Centre, which includes Victoria and University hospitals, started comparing its staffing levels with others in the province, and determined that its hiring was outpacing its patient growth, hospitals officials have said.
The hospital says it’s not laying off nurses and that there is no official hiring freeze, but that 212 full-time registered nurse positions will be cut through retirements or voluntary departures, while 108 registered practical nurses will be hired. Officials say they’re hiring RNs where needed.
“Over the past couple of months, we’re having more and more patients who are not appropriately assigned,” the ICU nurse said. “We don’t have enough staff. There’s no time to care for the person.”
Patients in the ICU are very ill and usually need one-on-one care and monitoring, she added. “They’re on external life support, on continuous dialysis, pumps that help the heart. We’ve had nurses who are (looking after two patients) and then a third because a nurse goes on break. That never should be happening.”
“It takes three months to train an ICU nurse, and we’ve had people go off on long-term disability, go to other jobs, leave for temporary jobs, on mat leave. There’s such a backlog of positions that need filling. I leave every shift feeling drained, and it’s only going to get worse.”
The Ontario Nurses Association sounded the alarm five months ago, saying that 288 registered nurse positions would be eliminated at Victoria and University hospitals, a number the hospital disputed.
“Positions continue to be filled based on vacancies, patient care needs, and operational requirements. While vacancies may arise during the course of normal turnover and recruitment, that does not mean positions are frozen or intentionally being left unfilled,” hospital officials said in a statement on Friday.
“We recognize the significant complexities experienced by nurses and members of our health-care team, particularly those caring for critically ill patients.”
But the union says the nursing shortage is “critical” and that their members are working under “increasingly impossible conditions.”
“Nurses who work while their units are extremely short-staffed are suffering from increasing burnout, fatigue, physical and moral injury. Scientific studies have shown that patients face a higher risk of suffering complications and even death when cared for in situations where short-staffing occurs,” the union said in a statement.
Hospital officials say critical care staffing is reviewed daily and that its working to “discuss both immediate and longer-term staffing solutions.”
Meanwhile, the ICU nurse who spoke to CBC News, said she and her colleagues are frustrated about increasing workloads and larger numbers of part-time nurses being hired to replace full-time positions.
“It’s hard not to feel very helpless,” she said.
The province says it is making “record investments” in healthcare and training nurses.