Hospital staffing will “get worse before it gets better” says Shephard
Just a few days after a rally of hundreds outside the Sackville Memorial Hospital calling for a solution to the health care staffing crisis, Horizon Health announced an additional unexpected closure of emergency services at the hospital over the weekend.
At about 1:30pm Saturday, Horizon issued an public service announcement saying that the Sackville ER would close early “due a sudden unavailability of physician and nurse coverage.”
The Sackville ER is already operating on reduced hours, open just 8 hours a day, from 8am to 4pm, seven days a week. And acute care services at the hospital have also been suspended due to staff shortages.
The closure on Saturday seemed to echo the words of health minister Dorothy Shephard at a news conference the day before, when she said the staffing situation in Sackville would “get worse before it gets better.”
“We’re dealing with long standing issues that have never really been addressed,” said Shephard. “And they go back many years.”
“We have recruitment and retention programs that are implemented now that we will be enhancing in the weeks coming forward,” said Shephard. “And that’s our only way out of this. We have got to get the personnel that can to deliver the programs that we have there.”
Shephard also reiterated a commitment made by Horizon interim CEO John Dornan earlier in the week, that there was no plan to shut down or cut back services at the Sackville Memorial Hospital.… Continue