As hospitals across the country warn of nurse shortages and understaffing, Kingston, Ont., is also feeling the strain.
“Like most other Canadian hospitals, nursing recruitment and retention is actually a significant challenge,” says KHSC Chief Human Resources Officer Sandra Carlton.
Kingston Health Sciences Centre is actively recruiting 160 external nursing positions — that is four times as many as this time last year.
Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario CEO Doris Grinspun says that this shortage is the result of a mass exodus from the nursing profession, and it has been a long time coming.
“I have been warning the minister, the government, the premier and the media for months and months, in fact, for years,” says Grinspun.
Many vacancies are being attributed to early retirements from the profession.
“We need to understand that this was a long — and still is a long — pandemic. Things are not back to normal,” Grinspun continues. “People are exhausted. They’ve needed to cancel their days off, let alone vacations, many times.”
Many new positions have been created as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Over the past 15 months, KHSC has expanded its nursing workforce by approximately six per cent to meet the increasing demand for health care.
Last year alone, KHSC hired more than 900 new nurses. With so many positions available, Grinspun says there need to be incentives for staff.
“It depends on the government quite frankly, and employers,” says Grinspun about keeping workers. “This is not a new phenomenon, it was only aggravated because of the pandemic.”
However, there is some good news for the next generation of nurses. Nursing programs have benefited from the Ontario government adding 800 new seats for students.
“More and more people want to come into nursing. There is a huge influx of people that want to become nurses,” says Grinspun.
Until these students begin to graduate, many hospitals will likely need to operate with fewer nurses as more experienced workers leave the profession.