N.L. health system stretched thin with about 1,000 workers in isolation due to COVID-19

The unions that represent health-care workers in Newfoundland and Labrador say the system is critically strained, with about 1,000 employees now in isolation or infected with COVID-19 as a result of the Omicron variant wave.

With the province's active caseload now in the thousands, union leaders say, health-care workers are feeling burnt out from having to pick up the slack from colleagues who are sick or in isolation. 

"They're just physically exhausted.… Our members have been fighting the pandemic for the past two years," Sherry Hillier, president of the Newfoundland and Labrador branch of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, told CBC Radio's Newfoundland Morning on Thursday.

"But our members were burnt out even before the pandemic started, because there has been a shortage of licensed practical nurses and personal-care attendants for a number of years."

Health workers are also being redeployed from their regular roles to help in the pandemic response, which includes a high demand at testing and vaccine clinics.

Hillier said her union's members are being asked to work a lot of overtime, but some are also being mandated. 

Jerry Earle, president of the Newfoundland and Labrador Association of Public and Private Employees, says the outbreak is a serious situation for his members. 

"Before this pandemic started our unions were raising the alarm about the level of staffing, especially in long-term care facilities and in a number of professions," Earle said. 

"The system is beyond strained, and it's causing extreme concern for front-line workers out there. There's significant numbers in isolation and significant numbers testing positive."

On Monday about 600 health-care workers were in isolation because of COVID-19, according to the provincial government. With 400 more now on the shelf, Earle said, those who are left behind have to make up the workload, putting more stress on an already strained health-care system. 

Earle said he fears it will be weeks before the situation levels out. 

Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Janice Fitzgerald says protecting the health-care system's capacity is among the highest priorities right now. While hospitalizations remain low — three as of Wednesday's update — the more than 3,600 active cases provincewide still put pressure on health-care and hospital staff, she acknowledged.

"We're very hopeful that we'll start to see a crest and that our case counts will start to come down and we'll be able to make some moves away from some of these measures that we have," Fitzgerald told The St. John's Morning Show on Thursday.

Fitzgerald said hospitals are well prepared with experience from previous outbreaks, even with so many workers currently in isolation.