Nurses worried backup plan for virtual docs in Yellowknife ER will push them beyond their training

Nurses are worried a backup plan to have virtual doctors in the emergency room at Stanton Territorial Hospital will push them beyond the boundaries of what they've been trained to do, according to the College and Association of Nurses of the Northwest Territories and Nunavut (CANNN). 

"What I'm hearing is like quite a lot of fear from nurses and a lot of questions about liability, about 'what am I responsible for, how does this impact my licence if situation XYZ happens," said Megan Wood, CANNN's executive director. 

The Northwest Territories Medical Association, the Union of Northern Workers and CANNN  issued a joint media statement last week decrying what they called a plan to use virtual doctors and have doctors work 12-hour shifts to deal with a staffing shortage this summer. 

Though virtual emergency rooms are used in other regional hospitals it's unclear how, exactly, it would work at Stanton. Wood said it's a "bit of an unknown" but she presumes a doctor would interact with a patient and give orders to a nurse using an iPad. 

As for who will do the physical care? 

"It's going to be your nurses," said Wood. 

"There's … always a concern that if a nurse works outside of a scope or does something that results in patient harm, then they have the possibility of facing legal problems. And so that's higher risk in this sort of situation for sure." 

CBC News has requested an interview with the territory's health minister, Lesa Semmler, about the summer staffing plan. 

The Northwest Territories Health and Social Services Authority (NTHSSA), which operates Stanton, issued a statement Friday saying draft information it sent to staff last week about contingency planning — including virtual care — wasn't finalized yet. It said it was "unfortunate" that information had been released to the media. 

The authority also said a virtual ER and 12-hour shifts for doctors was not the plan but a backup plan — something Wood considers to be obvious.

"Of course NTHSSA doesn't want to not have physicians," she said. 

But, she said, Folk on the Rocks — usually a busy weekend in the emergency room — is coming up quickly and "the fear is very real." 

"Transparency and timely communication isn't just for public trust. It's for the nurses to trust in the system too. And I think that's ultimately what we're seeing here is nurses feeling like they're not supported, nurses feeling like they don't have that trust in order to do their jobs effectively or trust that the process is going to support them with the solution."