Maternity wards around Montreal have had to close temporarily because of nursing shortages
CBC
Forced overtime during the pandemic and a recent spike in births have exacerbated a shortage of labour and delivery nurses in Quebec, leading several Montreal-area maternity wards to curtail services and even, in some cases, temporarily close.
Patients have been transferred to other hospitals, sometimes as far away as a couple of hours drive, in order to deliver their babies.
Doctors worry the measures announced last week — bonuses of between $12,000 and $15,000 to attract nurses who have left the public system — won't be enough to fix the shortage of specialized nurses.
"We want to be sure that pregnant women will have a delivery with all the nurses they need, who will take care of them and their baby," said Dr. Diane Francoeur, an obstetrician and gynecologist at the Sainte-Justine mother and child hospital in Montreal.
"And with this big shortage, it's a threat."
Francoeur says she hopes the bonuses will convince labour and delivery nurses to come back to work, but notes it's a specialized field that comes with difficult shifts, working nights and weekends — one of the reasons many nurses left the public system to join private agencies, health officials say.
"You have to be really convinced that it's the best place to work to stay," she said.