The intensive care unit of the Campbellton Regional Hospital has temporarily closed so staff can assist in the emergency department during an “unprecedented shortage of nursing staff.”
“Although this shortage is being felt throughout the facility, the Emergency Department has been particularly affected,” Vitalité Health Network said in a release.
Dr. France Derosiers, president and CEO of the network, said the intensive care unit beds will be closed from Aug. 26 until Sept. 9.
“This will free up skilled human resources to keep our Emergency Department open and free up medicine beds in order to implement our initial temporary bed reduction plan,” he said.
Patients currently admitted to the ICU will be transferred to the Edmundston Regional Hospital and the Chaleur Regional Hospital in Bathurst. As well, new patients from the Restigouche region will be directed to those two hospitals.
This transfer protocol will also apply to residents of the Listuguj First Nation and Avignon Regional County Municipality in Quebec, but they can be transferred to a Quebec hospital instead if they would prefer.
The network said it intends to implement a 12-bed reduction plan in the obstetrics-gynecology unit so staff can be redeployed to the emergency department, but it said a “number of steps” need to happen first and it could take a few weeks.
As of July 30, there were 91 nursing positions to be filled in the Restigouche area, which makes up about a quarter of the vacant positions in this field. The network, as a whole, has 387 vacant positions.
Desrosiers said almost 50 per cent of the nursing positions at the Campbellton Regional Hospital are vacant.
“Employees have made tremendous efforts to maintain services in recent months and I thank them,” he said.
“With help from the Intensive Care Unit nursing staff, it will be possible to keep the Emergency Department in Campbellton open, provide safe patient care and give our employees a modest break.”
Closure ‘regrettable,’ health minister says
On Thursday, Health Minister Dorothy Shephard said during a news conference that this isn’t a problem that “happened overnight.”
She said the province is working with partners like the health networks, ambulance services and nursing unions to come up with solutions.
“It is regrettable that some programs need to be temporarily halted in support of other things like emergency rooms, and making sure that we have strong personnel there to support ERs,” she said.
“But the fact is that you will be seeing measures and opportunities of solutions coming forward in the very near future.”
Asked if the region can afford to go without its ICU during the fourth wave of COVID-19, Shephard said decisions are made on the available and current data of the day.
“We don’t want any services temporarily suspended, but the fact of the matter is it is far safer to make these decisions in advance of having a crisis happen, and not having the staff to fully support measures that need to be taken,” she said.
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