This will be a test of the Saskatchewan Party Government. It should realise that it will need to offer competitive salaries and benefits if it is to avoid losing even the nurses it has. Part of the blame must rest with the NDP since it was informed of the developing situation and did not act quickly. It is strange that when it comes to equipping and staffing the military money is the answer but often when it comes to health care money is not supposed to be the answer. The answer seems to be sloughing off costs to individual pockets, privatisation, and a two tier system that favors the rich.
Wednesday » March 5 » 2008
A system stretched to its limits
The Leader-Post
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
It's a long-running problem with no easy solution -- too few nurses to meet the ever-growing demands placed on our health-care system.
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Nurses and their unions have been warning of it for a long time -- and it's happened again: more patients than there are nurses to care for them.
The most recent "overcapacity" crisis has been caused by the long-running shortage of nurses and a sudden, unpredictable influx of patients caused by many factors, including a outbreak of antibiotic-resistant infections. The Regina Qu'Appelle Health Region has indicated it has 53 beds closed at the Regina General Hospital and another 28 closed at the Pasqua Hospital because of a shortage of nurses. And a week ago, the nurses union said that a shortage of critical care beds and nurses at the two hospitals had resulted in some elective open-heart surgery being cancelled.
With luck, the number of patients needing acute-care services will diminish as the most serious infection cases are treated. The union representing registered nurses is urging that patients be sent elsewhere, which is easier said than done. RNs in Manitoba are to vote on authorizing their own union to consider calling a strike and Alberta is in the same boat as Saskatchewan, with heavy use swamping hospitals there, too. There might be some unoccupied beds elsewhere in hospitals elsewhere in Saskatchewan, but that seems a long shot. The idea of airlifting patients into the U.S. is murky logic: That would drain out of the health-care system substantial amounts of money that should be reinvested into more personnel for front-line duties.
It was only last week that the Saskatchewan government signed a recruiting and retention agreement with the Saskatchewan Union of Nurses and announced plans for a recruiting mission to the Philippines, but the benefits from both initiatives will take time to filter through the system. Altering job descriptions to make more use of licensed practical nurses is another possibility, but union rivalries get in the way.
As it heads today into contract negotiations with the provincial government, SUN has the government over a barrel. In the North American birthplace of universal medical coverage, public worry over that system is at an all-time high.
© The Leader-Post (Regina) 2008
Copyright © 2008 CanWest Interactive, a division of CanWest MediaWorks Publications, Inc.. All rights reserved.
CanWest Interactive, a division of CanWest MediaWorks Publications, Inc.. All rights reserved.
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