LAKELAND - Wait times have grown and health care staff at the Bonnyville Healthcare Centre are burning out as emergency bed closures elsewhere force patients to come to Bonnyville, according to Mayor Gene Sobelowski.
During the Aug. 24 meeting of council, Sobelowski responded to a question from Coun. Chad Colbourne on the situation at the hospital right now and how emergency bed closures in other Lakeland communities may be putting pressure on staff in Bonnyville to meet an increased demand of patients.
Sobelowski said Bonnyville was one of the few hospitals in the North Zone that didn't have bed closures and shutdowns, and he has learned during discussions with health care workers that the workloads of staff have increased “immensely” as patients come to Bonnyville for care. That issue is exacerbated by a shortage of nurses.
“It's a nasty situation right now,” he said.
Sobelowski said he has heard part of the issue driving the nursing shortage is how they are paid, and nurses are leaving the province for greener pastures. There isn't anything the municipality can do to help solve the situation, he said.
“Now that the province is going after the nursing union for cuts, nobody wants to work in Alberta. We are not a choice place to work, and those that are in the environment, the first chance that they can ... they are bailing,” he said.
“What you're seeing is the effects of about a year and a half or two years of this campaign, and it is significantly harming our health system.”
According to the Alberta Health Services (AHS) website, 10 of 42 acute care beds have been closed at the St. Therese – St. Paul Healthcare Centre, and a temporary staff shortage is attributed to vacation time, vacancies and ongoing recruitment.
The Elk Point Healthcare Centre has had all five of its beds closed and has no on-site physician Tuesdays and Thursdays. Nursing staff are assessing, triaging and referring patients.
The Cold Lake Healthcare Centre has five of its 24 acute care beds closed due to a temporary staff shortage.
The William J. Cadzow – Lac La Biche Healthcare Centre has eight of its 23 acute care beds closed for the same reason.
Bonnyville does not have any bed closures.
Maureen Miller, the mayor of St. Paul, told Lakeland Today municipalities in the region rely on each other when it comes to health care.
“Bonnyville is 100 per cent accurate – it's a domino effect to all of us,” she said of the argument that bed closures put pressure on Bonnyville's hospital. A bed closure in St. Paul, for instance, would send patients to Elk Point, Bonnyville or Edmonton, depending on the situation.
“When that extra pressure is then placed on Bonnyville, or Cold Lake, or Elk Point – or, vice-versa, Bonnyville to St. Paul – it happens to all of us, and it just seems to rotate from emergency room to emergency room being closed because of that shortage. So we all have to take that heat, and our staff are exhausted.”
Miller said she gets a call every week, and sometimes more often, from people looking for a doctor, or who had to travel to Edmonton for a simple medical procedure.
“They're desperate, too. That's what keeps the community thriving, is when you can have health care and education,” she said – though Bonnyville isn't that far from St. Paul, it's a long distance to go when you have an emergency.
Miller said some of the staffing shortage comes from vacation time, but not all. Health care workers being pulled to the front lines of the COVID-19 testing or vaccine efforts contributes to the shortage as well.
“If anything, to get them back into our rotation is difficult when the government still needs them at those locations,” she explained.
Miller said the province has been up-front with her about the issues at the St. Paul hospital. Solving the issue of a lack of staff isn't easy, though – they had hoped the situation would be alleviated by the end of August, but that was before the latest wave of infections hit the province.
“They don't even know how to get the staff – we're not having registrants coming into the programs, as far as nursing, definitely maybe not wanting to settle in rural areas, and in the middle of the pandemic besides. So it's been a triple whammy,” she said.
“There are so many factors at play. It isn't just the nursing staff or the physician staff, there are many, many (factors) at play.”
The staffing issues go beyond the Lakeland area, she added – it impacts the whole North zone.
“Our local area is all working together. We're all connected, we all rely on each other,” she said.
Cold Lake Mayor Craig Copeland told Lakeland Today that those issues haven't been felt overly much at the Cold Lake hospital.
He said he knows that rationing staff at the Cold Lake hospital did result in a few bed closures in admittance, and occasionally patients will be transferred between Cold Lake and Bonnyville if one of the hospitals is full, but the Cold Lake hospital has 19 emergency beds open right now and isn't currently experiencing any issues that would require them to send patients elsewhere.
He acknowledged the nursing shortage in the North Zone is affecting Cold Lake as well.
“AHS is working to try to recruit more full-time positions, more people to come to these rural areas. Everybody's aware of it, it's just the staffing shortage unfortunately exists right now,” he said.
“Personally, I think we've got to look at the root, look at increasing the amount of education spots for people to take up nursing and get more RNs and nurse practitioners. We've got to increase the supply of people.”
