The manager of clinical operations for Vernon, B.C.’s Gateby Care Centre did not mince words when she emailed other Interior Health staff last September to ask for guidance on addressing the facility’s staffing shortage.
Iwona Sienko said the Interior Health-operated long-term care facility was “experiencing critical nursing shortages.”
Sienko said there was a 50 per cent vacancy rate for registered nurses and 44 per cent vacancy rate for licensed practical nurses.
The email is part of a series of internal messages about the staffing shortage at Gateby, released to Global News through a Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act request.
They provide the public with rare insight into the depth of the long-term care staffing shortage and how officials try to address the challenge.
However, key parts of Sienko’s Sept. 12 email are redacted, or blacked out.
“We lost several nurses to vaccine mandates that we never recovered from and now…” Sienko said. The rest of the sentence is redacted under a section of the Act that requires officials to withhold information harmful to personal privacy.
A possible fix Sienko says she would like to explore, written in the email, is also redacted.
The next day Sienko’s emails show she had “been given (the) green light to explore the possibility of hiring agency nurses.”
However, by the next week, the care facility was dealing with a second challenge: a COVID outbreak.
Sienko quickly applied for incentive pay tied to the outbreak to help with staffing, asking at one point if it was OK to apply even before an outbreak was officially declared.
The form applying for incentive pay said multiple residents on the third floor had tested positive for COVID in the span of a few days.
“We work at 50-70% staff often,” the application for 1.5 times pay stated.
“Requests for redeployment of staff have been unsuccessful due to regional-wide staffing shortages.”
As part of that request for extra pay, the manager is required to confirm they have “exhausted all normal call-out procedures,” including attempting to secure agency nurses, and to “confirm that patient care standard is not being met.”
Later that day Gateby was approved for incentive pay.
That’s where the emails end as there was a significant lag time in producing the documentation.
Global News requested the records on Sept.r 23, but did not receive them until Dec. 23.
As of early October, records show Gateby had eight vacant licensed practical nurse positions and nine empty nursing assistant positions.
President of the BC Nurses’ Union Aman Grewal said the type of worker shortage that occurred at Gateby in September puts pressure on the remaining nurses.
“Our staff are the ones that are having to take on the excessive workload and are overwhelmed where they are not even able to take a break to have something to eat, some sustenance to keep them going throughout their shift,” said Grewal.
Interior Health reports staffing improvements
The health authority said despite the “critical nursing shortages” this fall they still had the staff to provide safety for residents, and there have been staffing improvements since the fall.
Julie Davenport, Interior Health’s Director of Seniors Care for North Okanagan, said the facility is now fully staffed for care aides (which includes those with the job title of nursing assistant).
Davenport said they were able to add care aides through external recruitment and education programs.
But the health authority is still reporting six vacant positions for licensed practical nurses. That’s down two vacancies from October, not because the facility has more LPNs (there continues to be 11), but because the health authority is looking to hire for fewer positions.
Meanwhile, one of the three registered nursing jobs is vacant.
Davenport said Gateby is filling the gaps with staff redeployed from other areas and casual workers.
In the longer term, she believes partnering with educational institutions, which is something IH and Gateby already do, will make a real difference in the staffing situation.
“We offer education on site, so what is great about that is they get to know the people and the sites. What we find is that we have such great residents and when you get to know them and you have that connection, you are then more likely to stay at the site that you did your practicum,” Davenport said.
Davenport said coordinated education programs have already had an impact on care aide staffing and she believes it will start to help on the nursing side as well.
“Our challenge is, of course – in the meantime – is making sure we maintain safe staff levels and we find and redeploy as much as we can to ensure that,” she said.
Gateby challenges not unique
Davenport and Grewal agree the staffing challenges at Gateby are not unique to the facility or even long-term care, but are part of a national or even international shortage of nurses.
Indeed, a document about Pleasant Valley Manor in Armstrong, another Interior Health-operated long-term care facility, shows it was also seeing serious staffing challenges during a COVID-19 outbreak in September.
The form asking for incentive pay related to an outbreak at Pleasant Valley Manor said it was “Utilizing all staff disciplines to cover baseline care.”
“We are struggling to keep residents isolated due to staff shortages. 40% of our current staff are working double shifts and others are not receiving meal breaks,” the form stated.
When asked about those details of staffing conditions at Pleasant Valley Manor, Davenport said in long-term care residents with dementia and complex clients can make the ability to isolate a bit more complicated.
“They may not have that cognitive ability to appreciate or understand what it means to isolate so we make sure that we have the staff to support them so we can ensure their safety,” said Davenport.
Overall, the nursing union feels there needs to be more nurses trained and a greater focus on retention as the health-care system broadly continues to face a nursing shortage.
“They need to look at different models. They can’t count on redeployment because where are they going to redeploy from when there aren’t enough nurses in acute care or community either?” said Grewal.
Grewal said she was glad to see the recent announcement aimed at helping internationally educated nurses and former nurses to take jobs in B.C.
“I just hope that nobody is turned off from going into the profession. There are lots of opportunities. We just need to get it back to where it was with proper safe staffing levels,” said Grewal.