While the Sackville hospital was experiencing a last minute closure of its emergency department last Thursday, Horizon\u2019s CEO John Dornan told those gathered for the network\u2019s annual general meeting that staffing issues at the hospital have been improving, and that the hours for the ER might see an increase in the not-too-distant future, possibly even this fall.<\/p>\n
Sackville\u2019s emergency department hours were cut by two thirds to just eight hours per day about a year ago. Then in December, acute care beds at the hospital were converted into alternative level of care (ALC) beds for those awaiting placement in long term care homes. The move accomplished two things: it reduced the staffing pressures to keep acute care open, and it opened up beds for some of the backlog of people awaiting placement in long term care facilities in the region.<\/p>\n
New Brunswick\u2019s hospitals are housing many people in the ALC category, generally waiting for a long term placement in a more appropriate facility. Horizon\u2019s annual report says the network averages about one quarter of all its beds allocated to ALC patients.<\/p>\n
At Thursday\u2019s annual general meeting, CHMA asked Dornan whether the need for those transition beds would pose a challenge to the return of acute care to Sackville, and how that measured up against the continuing challenges in staffing.<\/p>\n
Dornan replied that the issue is still mainly a lack of staffing, and that the Sackville hospital has not been \u201cassigned to be an ALC facility exclusively.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile Sackville Memorial has been a big contributor to the care of alternate level of care of patients, they\u2019re not the only ones to own that responsibility,\u201d said Dornan. \u201cAll of our regional hospitals have them.\u201d Sackville Memorial Hospital has \u201cnot been determined to not do that,\u201d said Dornan. \u201cIn other words we hope to get back to that at some point in time\u2026 That is our goal. I won\u2019t back away from that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dornan said staffing of the Sackville hospital is the biggest obstacle to overcome in order to be able to restore services, and he says those issues have been improving. \u201cWe have had more staff join us,\u201d said Dornan. \u201cWe have had better stability of our daytime hours in the emergency department. And frankly, we\u2019re looking forward to increasing those hours in the not too distant future, possibly by the fall.\u201d<\/p>\n
Horizon VP of Clinical Services Margaret Melanson said a new nurse manager as well as licensed practical nurses and registered nurses have been recruited recently.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne or two have begun, and others are in the midst of their orientation at this time,\u201d said Melanson. \u201cAdditionally, we have recruited new nurse graduates from this spring to join the staffing at Sackville Memorial Hospital, and those individuals will begin imminently and have their orientation completed before the end of the summer.\u201d<\/p>\n
Melanson shared Dornan\u2019s optimism. \u201cWe are very pleased with the recruiting that has been undertaken, and we are feeling very confident that we will move quite quickly to be able to support overnight care by two registered nurses at all times in the facility, which will allow us to begin to reintroduce some acute care patients at that site.\u201d<\/p>\n
In terms of physician recruitment, Melanson said that although the summer looks \u201ctenuous\u201d, in the longer term \u201cwe are feeling very comfortable with our move in the correct direction, and to be able to, some time hopefully in the fall, begin to increase the hours of service at the Sackville Memorial Hospital emergency department.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thursday\u2019s closure of the Sackville emergency department was due to a lack of physicians, and recently the department has lost at least one, and likely two doctors working in the emergency department. CHMA reached out to Horizon for confirmation on the physician staffing situation, but did not hear back before publishing time.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, Mirimachi Leader reporter Nathan Delong asked Dornan to talk about the measures the network has taken to address its system-wide staffing issues. \u201cWe have to change the culture on our front lines,\u201d said Dornan. \u201cWe have to make our hospitals places where people want to work.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dornan mentioned Horizon\u2019s \u201cnegative recruitment process\u201d, whereby more staff are leaving than are being recruited, though the past year\u2019s annual report shows small increases in staff numbers across the board as compared to 2020-21.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first, early part of addressing that culture is start to listen to people. Listen to the frontline, not just managers or VPs or CEOs,\u201d said Dornan.<\/p>\n
Dornan indicated Horizon has been doing that through orchestrated \u201clistening sessions\u201d, and one of the things they\u2019ve heard is concern over adequate pay. Pay scales are set by the provincial government, but Dornan said Horizon\u2019s chief nursing officer, Brenda Kinney, has been participating in discussions, and that the pay scale has improved for nurses. \u201cWe\u2019re more likely to bring nurses from Nova Scotia here than the other direction,\u201d said Dornan.<\/p>\n
Horizon has also started a campaign to inspire all New Brunswickers to help in the recruitment process, by offering them cash rewards. Currently, the program is targeting Class A Registered Nurses, and anyone who refers an RN that ends up taking a job with Horizon will make $1,000. If that RN ends up working in a critical care or emergency department, the reward goes up to $2,000. The network says the referral reward program will extend to other positions in the future.<\/p>\n
The effect is twofold, said Dornan.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt helps us recruit. It allows our community to participate in recruitment. And it helps change the conversation. If you\u2019re recruiting people, you\u2019re not going to speak poorly of the organization, you\u2019re going to concentrate on the positive things about Horizon.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hear this story as reported on CHMA's Tantramar Report:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" While the Sackville hospital was experiencing a last minute closure of its emergency department last Thursday, Horizon\u2019s CEO John Dornan told those gathered for the network\u2019s annual general meeting that staffing issues at the hospital have been improving, and that the hours for the ER might see an increase in the not-too-distant future, possibly even…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":102823,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[57,223],"tags":[505,829,11934,16104,831,3619],"radio":[227],"origine":[274,275,277],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102818"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102818"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102818\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":103175,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102818\/revisions\/103175"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102818"},{"taxonomy":"radio","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/radio?post=102818"},{"taxonomy":"origine","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/origine?post=102818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}