Sask. E.R.s facing staffing shortages, higher levels of abuse: nurses union

The Saskatchewan Union of Nurses (SUN) is saying urban emergency rooms have collapsed and the health-care system is in a variety of different crises.

SUN president Tracey Zambroy says they’re seeing an increase in violence in Pasqua Hospital in Regina. She said that some nurses are terrified, with more abuse and weapons coming through hospital doors.

“(Nurses) are fearing for their own safety, they’re fearing for the safety of people in the waiting room. The waiting rooms are full to overflowing. The triage desk is full to overflowing. They’re finding more people coming in who have weapons, who are threatening to do harm to the nurse who is at the triage desk, to the people in the waiting room,” Zambroy said.

On Thursday, Royal University Hospital in Saskatoon’s emergency rooms were 200 per cent over capacity. Zambory said the situation is becoming more unstable by the minute.

“Name calling, verbal abuse, physical abuse, spitting, hitting, and members having to try to contain people who are having psychotic breaks, whether it be from drug addiction or untreated mental illness, or families who are or patients who are just extremely frustrated because they’re waiting hundreds of hours to get care,” Zambroy said.

She said that people are coming into emergency rooms sicker than ever and are having to wait sitting on the floor, in pain, getting treatments in the waiting room. She added that there is a perfect storm from such issues as the systemic problem of not having proper mental health and addiction treatment, and no strategy to deal with people who feel marginalized in the community.

“It’s the registered nurses who are on the front lines every day in our emergency rooms and in our hospitals that are bearing the brunt of that and it’s to the point where they don’t want to do that anymore. They can’t psychologically or physically handle any more of this kind of abuse that’s coming their way.”

In a statement, the ministry of health says that human health resource challenges are occurring in hospitals and emergency departments across Canada as well as globally.

The ministry adds that the government of Saskatchewan has a four-point plan to recruit, train, incentivize and retain more health-care workers.

Saskatchewan Health Authority said in a statement, “Saskatoon hospitals are challenged with high occupancy levels and our Emergency Departments are experiencing high patient volumes. During the week, we have had periods when the RUH adult medicine and surgery inpatient units experienced in excess of 100 per cent occupancy, which creates barriers in terms of admitting new patients from the Emergency Department.”

The statement adds that the emergency department is also facing staff shortages and recruitment efforts are ongoing.

To tackle the problems, they say they are working collaboratively with physicians to consider regional centres as close to a patient’s home as possible for care if they can have their needs met there.

“We encourage those whose needs are more minor in nature to access care in community when and wherever possible in order to reduce pressures on our Emergency Departments,” SHA said in its statement.

Zambory said they are seeing a downturn in the number of registered nurses and an uptick in vacancies.

“Because the workplace became so overrun and so many poor decisions were made by the leadership of this province, by the Saskatchewan Health Authority, where workplaces started to become more and more difficult to practice safely, and where registered nurses were not being supported, where their opinions and their expertise knowledge was being discarded and ignored it,” she said.

She said that at Pasqua Hospital’s Emergencies Room, the staffing level is going to drop by 60 per cent by 4 p.m. Friday because they can’t fill the vacancies. “People could be off sick because they are so burnt out and so damaged by everything that’s going on, they can’t find their way to work.”

“Emergency room is a catastrophic event where lives are lost. That’s where we’re headed. If we do not turn this around,” Zambory said.

2:07 Staff shortages plaguing Saskatchewan’s health care system

She added that she met with Minister of Social Services Paul Merriman and Premier Scott Moe to discuss what short-term and long-term solutions they can come up with to manage this crisis in the shortage of nurses in the province, but is yet to hear back from either of them on if they are willing to partner and give registered nurses a voice at the table.

“We know what needs to happen for patients in this in this province, and we know what needs to happen to retain and recruit registered nurses,” she said.