Staffing shortages shuts down ER in Mount Forest for the 2nd weekend in a row

The emergency department at the Louise Marshall Hospital in Mount Forest are shutting for the second weekend in a row, this time from 5 a.m. Saturday until 7 a.m. Monday due to staffing shortages.  

A hospital spokesperson told CBC News that their healthcare staff are "over-stretched" and that they're "dealing with a critical shortage of nurses and other healthcare workers." 

"It's a very difficult time in healthcare right now," said Kate Kobbes, the vice president of clinical services and the chief nurse executive for the Wellington Health Care Alliance. "We're working very hard to prevent and minimize closures, and in fact closures is a new phenomenon that we're dealing with and it's all hands on deck."

This weekend the hospital will be shut down for a day longer than the previous weekend.

The Louise Marshall Hospital is part of a network of hospitals under the Wellington Health Care Alliance, which also includes Palmerston and District Hospital, and Groves Memorial Community Hospital.

"The staffing landscape in the last two years has changed dramatically, shifted dramatically," Kobbes said. 

"Many nurses have left healthcare, retired, gone into travel nursing, agency nursing or just changing around to opportunities that better suit them for a variety of reasons."

Kobbes said that being a rural facility, it's more difficult to fill vacancies with qualified healthcare staff. Another issue she pointed to is that many of the positions are temporary, so they're less appealing for people looking for full-time opportunities. 

"The emergency departments in particular are challenged in that they are the last resort and they can't turn anybody away," said Kobbes.

Kobbes said that 911 calls will still be responded to, but that EMS will be diverted to other facilities. 

"It's terrible," said Alecs Chochinov of the state of emergency health facilities in the country. He's the chair of the Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians' EM:POWER Task Force, who recently met with deputy ministers of health nationwide about ways to improve emergency health.    

"And I hesitate before using those words, but I've been practicing for 40 years," he told CBC K-W's The Morning Edition host Craig Norris. "I've never seen patients wait this long to be seen and I've never seen the staff so demoralized." 

He said that some healthcare workers are in "moral distress" and aren't coping well with the situation. 

"We have been talking about the need for hospitals to stop operating at 100 per cent capacity because when they do, admitted patients pile up in the emergency department and they block access for patients in the waiting room with serious problems," he said.