Hospitals grapple with ‘historical’ staff absences, burnout amid 6th COVID wave
Global News
Infectious disease specialists say a growing number of health-care workers are calling in sick with COVID-19, while many are also struggling with burnout from the pandemic.
Canada’s latest surge of COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations is taking a toll on health-care workers across the country.
As provinces grapple with a sixth wave of the pandemic, a growing number of doctors, nurses and other hospital staff are calling in sick with COVID-19, raising concerns about the availability and quality of care for patients.
Dr. Gerald Evans, infectious disease specialist at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont., said hospitals across the province are struggling with staffing levels, despite government officials, including Premier Doug Ford and Health Minister Christine Elliot, saying the province is equipped to handle the surge.
“The problem that we have is even if the numbers of people in hospital stay below what we saw during the fifth wave or perhaps gets to the fifth wave, we have a lot less people available to take care of those people in hospital,” he told Global News.
“So that’s a critical health-care measure that right now we don’t think is being really carefully looked at.”
The University Health Network (UHN) encompasses Princess Margaret, Toronto General and Toronto Western hospitals and five sites of Toronto Rehab.
The network says the staffing challenge “is not related to admitted patients but rather to the fact that we are seeing more staff reporting either that they are positive for the virus or have a household member who is positive.”
In a statement emailed to Global News last week, UHN said that it is seeing a seven-day rolling average that suggests almost 40 per cent of the staff who are reporting symptoms to health services are positive for COVID-19.
