A busy night at Lions Gate Hospital led Vancouver Coastal Health to enforce mandatory overtime for nurses, something their union says is indicative of chronic understaffing.
The incident happened on Dec. 30, involving four nurses, according to the B.C. Nurses’ Union.
“Clearly they don’t have enough staff but nonetheless, nurses who had declined overtime previously were then called back by the management who said that they had no choice,” said BCNU president Gayle Duteil.
One nurse had already worked six 12-hour shifts in the last eight days, she said.
“This is getting a bit ridiculous. Nurses should not bear the brunt of poorly planned staffing efforts by health authorities. (VCH) should have been more prepared for the holidays,” she said. “I’m not sure when nurses became slaves to the health authorities, but when you’re ordered to return to work on overtime, that’s a very, very serious incident.”
Patients also pay the price when there aren’t enough staff on at the hospital, Duteil added. “Certainly, when you’ve got tired, exhausted nurses working, that’s not the best care possible.”
The shortage is most felt in the intensive care, neurosciences and emergency departments, which were “packed to the rafters” thanks to a “perfect storm” of circumstances – Christmas and New Year’s Eve falling on weekends when walk-in clinics are closed, peak cold and flu season, and bad weather resulting in injuries.
There is a provision in the nurses’ collective agreement that does allow for mandatory overtime; however, it’s intended for catastrophic events like plane crashes, Duteil said. “It does not speak to really, really dismal staffing.”
The problem is not a lack of funding but rather a lack of qualified nurses available to hire, with job postings at most hospital departments around the province, Duteil conceded. But VCH should have taken more care in strategizing its schedule at a predictably busy time of year, she added.
Vancouver Coastal Health spokeswoman Anna Marie D’Angelo described the situation as a “perfect storm,” including nurses calling in sick at the last minute. “If people are sick, they’re sick and we of all places don’t encourage people to come to work sick because we have vulnerable patients,” she said. “In the interest of patient safety and also for staff safety, we decided to follow the process in the collective agreement … for mandatory overtime. This was after we had asked people if they want to work overtime.”
D’Angelo said only three nurses were called in, something that is extremely rare for the health authority. Together, they had only put in a combined seven hours of overtime in the previous year, she added. “We certainly thank them for doing this.”
As for the general shortage, that’s something Lions Gate is faring better with than many employers in the health sector, D’Angelo added. “We’re not the only health authority to have that challenge. It actually is kind of a national challenge as well, but certainly our vacancy rate has improved at Lions Gate.”
