Key takeaways:
- Two hundred nurses and associates employed by staffing agencies are filling the gaps, AHS says.
- Healthcare workers deliver care for a COVID-19 case in an Alberta ICU.
As staffing shortages persist in invading Alberta hospitals, travel nurses hired by personal agencies are being used to fill the gaps.
The use of staffing agency nurses is not new. Still, it is becoming more familiar as the practice is being embraced in some of the region’s most significant urban hospitals, according to the United Nurses of Alberta.
“It shows a real issue, that there’s a severe shortage,” stated David Harrigan, director of labor links with the United Nurses of Alberta.
“Nearly every main facility as travel nurses.”
According to Harrigan, staffing agency nurses have been utilized in northern Alberta for years, and more lately, hospitals in central Alberta have begun shifting to agencies for front-line staff.
He says emergency spaces and intensive care crews at the Foothills Medical Centre in Calgary and the University of Alberta hospital in Edmonton are sealing holes with travel nurses.
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“It’s a horrible answer to the issue because it’s far more costly,” said Harrigan, who reports some of these hired nurses can be paid up to double the amount AHS nurses get.
And the union is concerned regarding how fast temporary nurses can adapt.
“They’re not oriented appropriately to the facility. They don’t know all of the instructions. In terms of continuity of care, it induces big issues.”
200 personally hired staff
According to Alberta Health Services, almost 200 registered nurses, certified practical nurses, and healthcare aides — supplied by staffing agencies — work in the region’s hospitals and continuing care houses.
There is a sum of 50,000 people working in those positions.
The use of temporary front-line staff, the health authority says, is the final resort in the face of growing pressure on the healthcare system.
Source – cbc.ca
