Parents left scrambling as staff shortages close birth units across Ontario

It's after midnight and an overdue Kendra Duval sits on the edge of her bathtub after two days in early labour, her waters finally broken and intense contractions underway.

She prepared for a hospital birth, but there isn't one for her to go to. Her husband is on the phone with a nurse at a hospital in the small town of Winchester, Ont., trying to figure out where to drive.

They should already be headed to Winchester, but its birth unit has been closed overnight due to staffing shortages.

Duval knows the baby is coming. She can't stop her body's contractions or slow them down. "It was definitely the scariest moment of my entire life," she said.

After the scramble that happened next, the couple wants people to know that health care in the province urgently needs fixing, and that staffing problems extend beyond some hospital emergency rooms.

"I should be here relaxing and recovering from birth and just enjoying my baby. But I'm so mad that that happened to me, and I'm so upset that that might happen to somebody else, that I feel like I have to say something about it," she said.

Until a week before her Nov. 20 due date, Duval had no idea her hospital's obstetrics unit could just stop running.

She found out haphazardly, at a routine checkup with her OBGYN.

Duval, her husband and four-year-old daughter live in the small eastern Ontario community of Russell, Ont., a half-hour drive southeast of downtown Ottawa. The couple chose to have their second child at the Winchester District Memorial Hospital, also a half-hour drive, because of its great reputation in obstetrics.

Staff at her OBGYN's office said they were running late; the doctor had to help women needing induction who couldn't go to the hospital that night because the birth unit didn't have enough staff to stay open.

Duval, "blindsided" by what she heard, asked what would happen to her in that situation. She was told hospitals regularly communicate with each other, another hospital would take her if the need arose, and not to worry.

But she did worry. She had recently suffered a miscarriage and was being closely monitored as a result. And this time, COVID-19 and other viruses left her ill on several occasions.

"I said to my husband, I've spent nine, 10 months doing everything I can to protect this baby and make sure that he's safe. And now I feel like everything is in jeopardy again because maybe we won't have help in the moment, whenever the time comes."

When the time came — the night of Nov. 22, after two days of early labour — Winchester's birth unit was going to be shut down from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. due to a lack of staff.