A lack of staff at Victoria’s Royal Jubilee hospital due to COVID-19 has meant at least one patient needs to count on family to come in and feed her.
Margaret Mears is currently in hospital due to a reaction to her antibiotics. Her hands are virtually paralyzed.
Mears’s daughter, Helen Bell, was contacted by the hospital on Monday morning and told there were not enough staff to feed her 87-year-old mother.
“They said they did not have enough staff on today to feed her her meals, and (the family) must come down and feed her. So could we please figure out a way to get someone there for breakfast, lunch and supper because there was not enough staff,” Bell told Global News. “We did a bit of scrambling, but we got it covered.”
In an email, the B.C. Ministry of Health said it can’t comment on individual patient matters for privacy reasons but assured there has been no directive at any level for families to assist with patient feeding due to staff shortages.
“Capacity issues are not impacting the feeding of patients. Ensuring patients are fed will always be a priority, regardless of capacity issues,” it states. “Our health-care workers are grateful for the involvement of and help from patients’ families.”
From January 24 to 26, 2022, 1,881 health-care workers in Island Health were sick due to COVID-19 or other illnesses.
Staffing levels are being adjusted on a day-to-day and shift-by-shift basis — in advance whenever possible — to balance risk and help utilize human resources most efficiently across the system.
Bell said she has helped feed her mother before but has never been asked by a hospital to do so.
Her mother was also unable to shower for three weeks because of a lack of staff, she added. During that time, Mears received sponge baths.
The family was not given a timeline for how long the shortages would adversely affect Mears’s care, and Bell did not know how many other families were also asked to help with feeding.
“It was rather alarming to think our modern health-care system in Canada has gotten to the point where we require family to come in and feed patients,” Bell said.
“It was a jolt for sure. The staff has worked really hard, but I think there are just so many people out.”
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