Nurses pushed to their limits with no solutions in sight, union says

Registered nurses rallied in St. John's Wednesday as part of a week-long convention, again calling on the Newfoundland and Labrador government to create permanent solutions to staff shortages and workplace violence.

Margot Antle, a registered nurse and nurse practitioner, told CBC News those working in health-care continue to face daily staffing crunches that are pushing staff to their limits.

"It's pretty dire. They are short-staffed almost daily, if not daily, with no end in sight it seems," Antle said.

"For nurse practitioners, the role is a little bit different in that we sort of have to manage the workload no matter what…especially in our acute care services," she said. 

"There's a lot of 'one-ofs', in that there's one nurse practitioner who manages their caseload as a program. And they manage the work that comes in. There's nobody that relieves them."

The Registered Nurses' Union — which has long called on the province to better recruit and retain nurses and other health-care professionals — held the rally in the wake of weeks of debate about whether the public health authority is hiring enough new nurses to fill vacancies. 

Union president Yvette Coffey sounded the alarm earlier this month, when she learned that only three of the province's 121 upcoming nursing graduates were offered full-time positions within Newfoundland and Labrador Health Services (NLHS).

The provincial government has said that recruitment efforts are working. Health Minister John Hogan told CBC in late September that 839 nurses had been recruited since April 1, 2023, including 531 registered nurses.

Coffey said Wednesday the province still has more 600 vacant positions for registered nurses, and 81 vacant positions for nurse practitioners. She has met continuously with officials at NLHS and the province, but hasn't been motivated by what she's heard.

"That's all I've been hearing. 'We'll take that back, we'll have a look at it,'" Coffey said. 

"We're calling for action. Someone needs to just action the stuff that we're talking about. We are coming with solutions…Cause what's going on right now, taxpayers of Newfoundland and Labrador are paying for this. And the care that they're getting is not the care they need, nor the care they deserve."

Antle said she is concerned about future recruitment and retention efforts, pointing out other provinces are offering nurses and nursing students from Newfoundland and Labrador better compensation and working conditions.

"The health-care system and our funding model has not always modernized with the role. And that's what we're really struggling with right now from government," she said. "All of our requests and advocacy [have] fallen on ears that are not willing to hear. Or they're willing to hear, but not willing to act."

Meanwhile, Coffey said she's continuing to press for violence prevention measures within the health-care system.