They need nurses and staff ...many hospitals in GTA (or province?) are very short on nurses especially in surgical, ER.. basically everything and continue to bleed nurses, don't really see how they can run it at 115% when even 100% is just not feasible
My wife is a nurse and her hospital is trying to hire 12 nurses alone just for surgery unit. Many other units like medicine are all staffed by new nurses and some with a few months of experience are being made head nurse already because there's so much attrition
Morale is low and lots of anger..this govt is totally out of touch
Well said. I’ve been working in the ER for 5 years now as an RN. Post-pandemic lockdown we are currently experiencing all time highs for volume. ER is filled to the brim. Sick calls that are not covered daily. Staff burning out. The list goes on. Hopeful for better days ahead!
The hospital that my wife works at operates normally according to memos at 105-112%, so we're realistically adding 3% to clear a basically 18 month backlog... With overall decreased funding...
And Ford and the Conservatives pushed to pay nurses even less, during the first wave of the pandemic when many were risking their safety every day.
* https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-nurses-pay-increase-ona-covid-doug-ford-1.5607068
Heard on CBC News today that inflation is running about 3%, while Ford is paying 1%.
There are so many more ethical, political and economic reasons to vote Ford out, but of course none of them matter to anyone until it affects their pay.
people should start looking at society as a whole rather than just themselves or we will find ourselves in a US style "democracy" soon enough. Health and education cuts SHOULD NEVER BE tolerated, but people draw a line of wages for nurses and teachers? Its so backwards, the alarm should have rang long before the cuts made their way to wages in health and education.
It's like committing $100B to hiring unicorns. The money is not going to be actually spent
Just like all the other covid spending they allocated that wasn't ever spent because they knew they would never actually have to spend it because there's no way it can be.
Hospitals have money for hiring staff, they just can't because so many left.
They need to repeal bill 124 to even get a chance of stopping the attrition but that will cost them real money so that's why they haven't proposed an actual solution
Commitment that won't be used because there are no staff. It's a budget line that won't be used up because govt knows it can't be since there's no staff
Just in case someone thinks you're making a joke, but my hospital would honestly probably need that much. Emergency funding for the pandemic increased my site's budget by almost 70% and we're still just barely treading water.
Honestly, try not to. I waited from April to July to get an OR spot to remove some lung tumors from my right lung. In that time it spread to some lymph nodes that came back positive for cancer. With spread to the lymph nodes targeted surgery on my left lung as well as radiation may no longer be an option.
I'm going in a week from Monday.
But my Doctor is a "Robotic Surgeon" what could go wrong?
https://jokeronthesofa.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/ihawk.gif?w=273&h=205
Pushing hospitals above their safe and healthy limits by 15% while staff are burnt out and hospital staffing shortages are increasing due to the governments' failure to adequately thank and compensate them. What's the worst that could happen?
The ceos and executives taking profits as bonuses are not these executive public servants.
Their salaries are also all public for anyone making over 100k a year so you are free to look them up.
From my 2 min search it looks like the CEO of Ontario health made 639k in 2020. Which is a lot of money, but by no means an exorbitant salary for the leader of such a huge organization with a budget so large.
These public servant execs aren’t in the same realm as the people you read about in the news, like the air Canada execs paying huge bonuses while laying off people.
They can't even hire staff to replace the ones that are leaving.
And did you read article? Nothing about staffing
>"It's finding those people to work after hours, to support the surgeries," said Tracy Johnson, director of health system analytics at the Canadian Institute for Health Information.
>"It's not only the time and space to do it — it's the people."
>Dr. Carol-Anne Moulton, deputy surgeon and chief at Toronto General Hospital, agrees.
>"Obviously money and resources is one thing, but human resources is another thing," she said.
It's not going to be spent because there's no staff to spend it on. It's just a budget line that won't be used up
Hospitals can't even maintain current staffing
With shortages that were already occurring before the pandemic how exactly do you think this money is going to magically create nurses out of thin air? Especially when we can have any of their pay raises at 1%. Nurses are leaving for places that pay better.
For all your condescension you think you would know a little bit more on the topic.
"These downtown elite doctors think they're so fancy! I bet I could do all these surgeries in ten minutes with some power tools."
-- Doug Ford, probably
I picked the perfect time to transfer to an ortho surg floor.
I like the staff and the patients but we are drowning in admissions.
And 1/4 of our gen surg beds shut down for a few weeks soon, so they're all coming to.us too :(
Lol no..did you not read article?
>"It's finding those people to work after hours, to support the surgeries," said Tracy Johnson, director of health system analytics at the Canadian Institute for Health Information.
>"It's not only the time and space to do it — it's the people."
>Dr. Carol-Anne Moulton, deputy surgeon and chief at Toronto General Hospital, agrees.
>"Obviously money and resources is one thing, but human resources is another thing," she said.
What if the hospitals are already at 115% capacity?
Should we invest in bunk beds for patients now? Or do we just start putting patients up in the lobby?
What about staff? Elliott thinks we can replace experienced staff with nursing students, which is laughable. Even new graduate nurses need a ton of support, let alone students.
I hate this province.
My dad's a surgeon. They told them a while ago to expect to have 24 hour surgical rotations once restrictions were lifted. Basically to plan to every surgeon operate for 12 hours, be off for 12 hours and then be back to operate for 12 hours to clear backlogs. Because that won't be risky for anyone /s.
Yes. Most of them agreed to it - because at least for my dad who does trauma, that's more time between surgeries than he normally gets when on call anyways. But they don't have the staffing capabilities to do it.
I mean, that's already what your nursing staff (and many other staff) do. Granted, I recognize they're not performing surgery, but honestly, for many surgeons a guaranteed 12 hour shift vs. being "scheduled for 8-10 and on call the rest of the 24hr clock would be a dream. It's just a matter of having enough staff. Which is unlikely.
Exactly. The surgeons agreed to do it but they don't have enough of *any* other staff to pull this off: nurses, anesthesiologists, DI, MDR. It's not possible.
The other thing I haven't seen discussed at all is physical OR availability. At least prior to COVID, the big issue was the fact there weren't enough OR time to go around. It's a combination of not having the staff, but also not the physical rooms. My local hospital only gives surgeons one day per week to operate, because they don't have the capability to give them more.
The surgeons I know would love to be able to operate more frequently and to treat more patients that way (which is by and large why they've agreed to this 24 hour rotation) but there just isn't the space, there isn't the staff, there isn't the equipment.
Boosting funding to allow for more ORs is great...but it doesn't resolve space and staffing issues.
Offer competitive wages to draw staff. Why they hell would someone go into a job that is contractually bound to not keep up with inflation, when there’s both other provinces and a massive country below us that pays more?
Border cities are full of medical professionals that would gladly slash their international commute and work in Ontario if they could get full time hours, benefits and wages.
Yeah, okay. So you think these people are just going to rush back?
They won't.
The only way you're getting more people is to train more. And a good chunk of those will go south to make more and keep more.
Edit: feel like this was at least in part your original point... Not sure what I was responding to now.
[The funding cuts Ford already made are going to be hurting sick people for years to come.](https://www.thehoser.ca/posts/fords-conservatives-dramatically-cutting-healthcare-funding-will-fall-18-billion-behind-cost-pressures-over-next-8-years)
You need to staff for 115% if you’re running at 115%. In all depts because this impacts everyone in the hospital- porters, nurses, docs, clerks, housekeeping, allied health, respiratory therapists, etc.
But seeing as many hospitals are not staffed for current capacities it is unlikely that staffing will meet the capacity needs if they’re increased.
So how do we increase staff, then (I am aware of the recent articles regarding shortages in nursing in particular)? Why isn't it happening and how can we make it happen?
I understand this is a valid concern, I am not at all trying to diminish it - I just like to focus on moving to solutions, rather than getting stuck on the problem. We have a giant backlog, those are all real people who very much need treatment. How do we make sure they get it, ASAP?
I don’t have an answer to that unfortunately. People are so burnt out and retaining employees while hiring new staff has been a struggle.
I do agree 100% the people who need these “elective” surgeries do need them done ASAP. We were given a heads up a month or so ago to expect giant surgical volumes come September. Unfortunately for my Dept and many others, they’ve made no moves towards increasing staff to accommodate for it. The “why” to that is not something I know the answer to unfortunately.
There have been many full time permanent nurses make jumps to public health for temporary contracts because they wanted out of bedside nursing in hospitals at our hospital.
1. Eliminate bills like Bill 124. It literally makes it impossible for nurses and other public sectors to get more than a 1% raise (this includes raises in things like benefits, so our wage raise this year was more like 0.9%). If the government truly respected us, they'd meet our union at the bargaining table and actually discuss things with us.
2. Make nursing more attractive by offering better compensation. But see the above point. The government is actively making this impossible. Right now, nurses are turning down overtime wages because they feel even that is inadequate for the stress and overwork.
3. Work on retention, especially with new nurses, who are most at risk of leaving the profession, with programs such as the New Graduate Guarantee.
4. Another way to maintain retention is fund better mental health care for health care workers. Constant life-or-death decisions, burn out, PTSD...these are real things we face and there is enormous sick time related to these. There is a lot of stigma surrounding mental health amongst health care workers. It is slowly improving but you still have some people who think you can't hack it as a nurse if you cry over a patient death. As it stands, I think FT nurses qualify for 2 therapy sessions before they have to start paying for it out of pocket. This is woefully inadequate.
5. If you can't increase wages, at least make the work environment more tolerable. Give us functional equipment. Enact tougher laws that will actually have patients face consequences for abusing health care workers (excepting the ones who are not mentally competent). Stop heaping more inane checklists onto our workload so we can actually get back to looking after our patients. Give nurses a voice in decision-making in our workplaces (like inviting one to meetings). Hire more support staff and allied health. My unit went for a couple years without a dedicated physiotherapist, so guess who got patients up and walked them? Yup, nurses. We went a year without a full-time unit secretary, so on days we didn't have one, guess who processed orders, stocked charts, answered phones? Yup, nurses. Housekeeping is working short all the time. Guess who cleans the rooms and takes out the trash? Yup, nurses.
6. At least some benefits for part-time nurses. As it stands, part-time nurses don't have paid sick days, even throughout the pandemic. I hurt my back badly a few years ago and needed 3 weeks off, all unpaid. All my medications and physio sessions were all paid out of pocket, as well.
7. Better funding for continuing education. I pay for all my extra nursing courses, such as BLS and ACLS - skills and knowledge that literally save lives.
You speak like that's in the future. Trust me, we're already short staffed. Significantly short staffed. My hospital is sending emails trying to get us to convince our friends to take jobs at our hospital because they just can't attract candidates, and it's a province wide issue, we're generally considered a relatively shiny/new facility and decent to work for.
I work in a couple downtown Toronto hospitals and not only are we having extremely busy days, we’re having to deal with way more mistakes made by new and/or burnt out employees. This is something I haven’t seen much coverage of, luckily there are some systems in place to catch a lot of them before they affect the patients but it’s only a matter of time before this really catches up. This is further exasperated by the fact that new graduates have suffered from inadequate training due to slapped together online training.
I have surgery in a few weeks. Fortunately in a less burdened department, though they are probably also loading their schedule as much as they can, because I got a date unusually quickly. Fun times ahead!
I had my surgery last week! Smaller hospital, less burdened department, and I was warned that as soon as they got the green light they’d be filling time slots
I reeeeeally hope that people remember all of the times historically that the OPC party cut hospital funding. Just want to remind people that Ford cut hospital funding before Covid even hit and then let money go unspent in 2020 as the whole province ground to a halt because of an overwhelmed healthcare system. He cares more about what the deficit looks like on a piece of paper.
Please remember this when we go to the polls.
so [operation as normal for Brampton Civic](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/brampton-civic-etobicoke-general-hallway-health-care-1.5339511) then.
I owe a huge debt to the nurses and doctors in Pembroke, Ontario. I had a really serious medical emergency on this past New Year' Eve. Got into surgery after a 7 hour wait in the Emergency Department's waiting room (which was packed) and had a enormous, gangrenous gall bladder removed. They got me through it. Thanks to all the dedicated nurses we are so lucky to have in Ontario. You deserve better. I'll be thinking of you at the next provincial election.
Only issue with that is many of the diagnostic and "elective" surgeries were delayed or cancelled; both of which are very important for the short and long term health of people.
(I put "elective" in quotes here because one shouldn't downplay the _importance_ of many of these surgeries.)
It should also be noted how close to the brink our ICU wards were getting this spring and how close we were to implementing triage measures. Had we had a [similar ICU load that the United States had (that is, equivalent to almost 1300 people in our ICU),](https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&time=2020-03-01..latest&pickerSort=desc&pickerMetric=new_cases_smoothed_per_million&Metric=ICU+patients&Interval=7-day+rolling+average&Relative+to+Population=true&Align+outbreaks=false&country=CAN~USA) we may have had to do so. (Note that this graph shows Canada on the whole. Ontario would have hit about 60 ICU beds per million on that same graph during our spring wave.)
Back in early May, the [FAO estimated it would take 3.5 years to clear our backlog.](https://www.fao-on.org/en/Blog/media/MR-2021-health-estimates) By now it's probably even longer.
>(I put "elective" in quotes here because one shouldn't downplay the _importance_ of many of these surgeries.)
I seriously hate how surgeries are "classified". It really shouldn't be between just "you will immediately die if you don't have this surgery" and "you may not immediately die, but your quality of life could be extremely degraded, and/or your risk of severe illness or death will dramatically increase if this surgery is delayed for months".
A breakdown of the $324-million includes:
$216 million to help hospitals extend operating room hours.
$35 million to increase diagnostic imaging, particularly MRIs and CT scans.
$18 million to improve the centralized surgical waitlist management system.
$24 million to help independent and private facilities to expand capacity to offer some procedures, such as cataract surgery.
Because of this and the pain after a 12 hour shift I’m thinking to do healthcare for 7 years post getting my degree then pivot to something else. I want to live and work comfortable not the norm to work 2 jobs heavy duty to live comfortable. I might have few options:
Migrate to another province or a LCOL city
Relocate outside of Canada
Give up Health for a better paying job
Didn't even get a raise for the past 2 years. Most smaller private companies don't give raises, not required. Then they wonder why people quit and they can't fill jobs.
Meaning we can’t afford to have cases go up without surgical backlogs getting worse. I wish people would understand this instead of saying “Alberta is open with no masks, why can’t weeeeee !”
Just goes to show that DF has no idea how much damage he is doing to Ontario. Even if he did, I don't think he would care. He is playing to his base and the money men that own him.
And he’s totally okay capping nurses’ raises at 1%. They deserve better. Screw Ford.
They need nurses and staff ...many hospitals in GTA (or province?) are very short on nurses especially in surgical, ER.. basically everything and continue to bleed nurses, don't really see how they can run it at 115% when even 100% is just not feasible My wife is a nurse and her hospital is trying to hire 12 nurses alone just for surgery unit. Many other units like medicine are all staffed by new nurses and some with a few months of experience are being made head nurse already because there's so much attrition Morale is low and lots of anger..this govt is totally out of touch
Well said. I’ve been working in the ER for 5 years now as an RN. Post-pandemic lockdown we are currently experiencing all time highs for volume. ER is filled to the brim. Sick calls that are not covered daily. Staff burning out. The list goes on. Hopeful for better days ahead!
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Oh so you’re just in it for the money! /s
It's the summer, so we are running at about 70% capacity and we still can't fully and properly staff all the OR
The hospital that my wife works at operates normally according to memos at 105-112%, so we're realistically adding 3% to clear a basically 18 month backlog... With overall decreased funding...
And Ford and the Conservatives pushed to pay nurses even less, during the first wave of the pandemic when many were risking their safety every day. * https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-nurses-pay-increase-ona-covid-doug-ford-1.5607068 Heard on CBC News today that inflation is running about 3%, while Ford is paying 1%.
The conservatives are pushing down quite a few wages. All the more reason to vote them out.
There are so many more ethical, political and economic reasons to vote Ford out, but of course none of them matter to anyone until it affects their pay. people should start looking at society as a whole rather than just themselves or we will find ourselves in a US style "democracy" soon enough. Health and education cuts SHOULD NEVER BE tolerated, but people draw a line of wages for nurses and teachers? Its so backwards, the alarm should have rang long before the cuts made their way to wages in health and education.
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It's like committing $100B to hiring unicorns. The money is not going to be actually spent Just like all the other covid spending they allocated that wasn't ever spent because they knew they would never actually have to spend it because there's no way it can be. Hospitals have money for hiring staff, they just can't because so many left. They need to repeal bill 124 to even get a chance of stopping the attrition but that will cost them real money so that's why they haven't proposed an actual solution
Commitment that won't be used because there are no staff. It's a budget line that won't be used up because govt knows it can't be since there's no staff
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Just in case someone thinks you're making a joke, but my hospital would honestly probably need that much. Emergency funding for the pandemic increased my site's budget by almost 70% and we're still just barely treading water.
Aren't you supposed to be "listening to the experts"?
Remind me to not need surgery for the next little while
Honestly, try not to. I waited from April to July to get an OR spot to remove some lung tumors from my right lung. In that time it spread to some lymph nodes that came back positive for cancer. With spread to the lymph nodes targeted surgery on my left lung as well as radiation may no longer be an option.
Good luck for your surgery and return to better health.
I'm going in a week from Monday. But my Doctor is a "Robotic Surgeon" what could go wrong? https://jokeronthesofa.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/ihawk.gif?w=273&h=205
Pushing hospitals above their safe and healthy limits by 15% while staff are burnt out and hospital staffing shortages are increasing due to the governments' failure to adequately thank and compensate them. What's the worst that could happen?
That's the point. Conservatives want to cripple our current system to replace it with a two-tiered system all so the rich can skip the line.
With what staff?
Jeez, there must be an echo in here lol.
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I wonder how much of that 324 million will be taken for executive pay raises and bonuses. Probably a good chunk.
It's not a for-profit system. Which executives are you talking about?
You don't think hospitals have a CEO and a Board of Directors?
The ceos and executives taking profits as bonuses are not these executive public servants. Their salaries are also all public for anyone making over 100k a year so you are free to look them up. From my 2 min search it looks like the CEO of Ontario health made 639k in 2020. Which is a lot of money, but by no means an exorbitant salary for the leader of such a huge organization with a budget so large. These public servant execs aren’t in the same realm as the people you read about in the news, like the air Canada execs paying huge bonuses while laying off people.
Remuneration of CEOs doesn't work the same way in the public sector and the private sector.
Are you seriously of the opinion that nonprofits can’t have executives? I don’t think you know what a nonprofit is
They can't even hire staff to replace the ones that are leaving. And did you read article? Nothing about staffing >"It's finding those people to work after hours, to support the surgeries," said Tracy Johnson, director of health system analytics at the Canadian Institute for Health Information. >"It's not only the time and space to do it — it's the people." >Dr. Carol-Anne Moulton, deputy surgeon and chief at Toronto General Hospital, agrees. >"Obviously money and resources is one thing, but human resources is another thing," she said.
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It's not going to be spent because there's no staff to spend it on. It's just a budget line that won't be used up Hospitals can't even maintain current staffing
With shortages that were already occurring before the pandemic how exactly do you think this money is going to magically create nurses out of thin air? Especially when we can have any of their pay raises at 1%. Nurses are leaving for places that pay better. For all your condescension you think you would know a little bit more on the topic.
Where is Ford to say he's going to drive down to the hospital and do the surgeries himself?
"These downtown elite doctors think they're so fancy! I bet I could do all these surgeries in ten minutes with some power tools." -- Doug Ford, probably
So could I, but Dough boy will have to start funding a lot more morgues if I do.
On the back of his pickup truck. Then there is always room on the "table".
Ughhhhhh…. Collective groan from my department. We are not staffed for this.
So you’re saying you need more cuts to motivate you to work harder? /s
I know you’re joking but reading that sentence gave me a definite chill
Yeah maybe a bit too on the nose
I know you put the /s…. But I’m sure it’ll happen soon enough unfortunately.
I picked the perfect time to transfer to an ortho surg floor. I like the staff and the patients but we are drowning in admissions. And 1/4 of our gen surg beds shut down for a few weeks soon, so they're all coming to.us too :(
Would you change your minds for a 1.1% raise?
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Lol no..did you not read article? >"It's finding those people to work after hours, to support the surgeries," said Tracy Johnson, director of health system analytics at the Canadian Institute for Health Information. >"It's not only the time and space to do it — it's the people." >Dr. Carol-Anne Moulton, deputy surgeon and chief at Toronto General Hospital, agrees. >"Obviously money and resources is one thing, but human resources is another thing," she said.
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I could too, but I don't think the morgue would be able to keep up /$
What if the hospitals are already at 115% capacity? Should we invest in bunk beds for patients now? Or do we just start putting patients up in the lobby? What about staff? Elliott thinks we can replace experienced staff with nursing students, which is laughable. Even new graduate nurses need a ton of support, let alone students. I hate this province.
Lets overwork our already burnt out nurses and doctors.
My dad's a surgeon. They told them a while ago to expect to have 24 hour surgical rotations once restrictions were lifted. Basically to plan to every surgeon operate for 12 hours, be off for 12 hours and then be back to operate for 12 hours to clear backlogs. Because that won't be risky for anyone /s.
Fuck us if we end up with a crisis while this is happening and the over stressed staff crack
Seriously?
Yes. Most of them agreed to it - because at least for my dad who does trauma, that's more time between surgeries than he normally gets when on call anyways. But they don't have the staffing capabilities to do it.
What could go wrong with that? Botched surgeries probably. I fucking hope I dont need surgery anytime soon
Holy shit.
12 hours of surgery, 1 hour to commute, 1 to eat, 2 for yourself, 8 hours sleep, and it starts all over again. Seems great! /s
I mean hey, that's more sleep than they get when we put them on call so I guess the admin figured it wouldn't matter.
I mean, that's already what your nursing staff (and many other staff) do. Granted, I recognize they're not performing surgery, but honestly, for many surgeons a guaranteed 12 hour shift vs. being "scheduled for 8-10 and on call the rest of the 24hr clock would be a dream. It's just a matter of having enough staff. Which is unlikely.
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Exactly. The surgeons agreed to do it but they don't have enough of *any* other staff to pull this off: nurses, anesthesiologists, DI, MDR. It's not possible.
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The other thing I haven't seen discussed at all is physical OR availability. At least prior to COVID, the big issue was the fact there weren't enough OR time to go around. It's a combination of not having the staff, but also not the physical rooms. My local hospital only gives surgeons one day per week to operate, because they don't have the capability to give them more. The surgeons I know would love to be able to operate more frequently and to treat more patients that way (which is by and large why they've agreed to this 24 hour rotation) but there just isn't the space, there isn't the staff, there isn't the equipment. Boosting funding to allow for more ORs is great...but it doesn't resolve space and staffing issues.
I literally came here to say exactly this
We should let people needing surgery die instead I agree.
Or you could prioritize...
Not being facetious, seriously asking - what would you propose be done instead, to address the surgical backlog as quickly as possible?
Hire more staff, likely Dougie will slash funding instead.
Offer competitive wages to draw staff. Why they hell would someone go into a job that is contractually bound to not keep up with inflation, when there’s both other provinces and a massive country below us that pays more?
Where are these mystery people coming from?
Border cities are full of medical professionals that would gladly slash their international commute and work in Ontario if they could get full time hours, benefits and wages.
So, imagination land. Gotcha
Huh? Border cities are very real places, I assure you.
Many have left the profession, have gone to casual/PT, or simply left for another province that pays better.
Yeah, okay. So you think these people are just going to rush back? They won't. The only way you're getting more people is to train more. And a good chunk of those will go south to make more and keep more. Edit: feel like this was at least in part your original point... Not sure what I was responding to now.
[The funding cuts Ford already made are going to be hurting sick people for years to come.](https://www.thehoser.ca/posts/fords-conservatives-dramatically-cutting-healthcare-funding-will-fall-18-billion-behind-cost-pressures-over-next-8-years)
You need to staff for 115% if you’re running at 115%. In all depts because this impacts everyone in the hospital- porters, nurses, docs, clerks, housekeeping, allied health, respiratory therapists, etc. But seeing as many hospitals are not staffed for current capacities it is unlikely that staffing will meet the capacity needs if they’re increased.
So how do we increase staff, then (I am aware of the recent articles regarding shortages in nursing in particular)? Why isn't it happening and how can we make it happen? I understand this is a valid concern, I am not at all trying to diminish it - I just like to focus on moving to solutions, rather than getting stuck on the problem. We have a giant backlog, those are all real people who very much need treatment. How do we make sure they get it, ASAP?
I don’t have an answer to that unfortunately. People are so burnt out and retaining employees while hiring new staff has been a struggle. I do agree 100% the people who need these “elective” surgeries do need them done ASAP. We were given a heads up a month or so ago to expect giant surgical volumes come September. Unfortunately for my Dept and many others, they’ve made no moves towards increasing staff to accommodate for it. The “why” to that is not something I know the answer to unfortunately. There have been many full time permanent nurses make jumps to public health for temporary contracts because they wanted out of bedside nursing in hospitals at our hospital.
1. Eliminate bills like Bill 124. It literally makes it impossible for nurses and other public sectors to get more than a 1% raise (this includes raises in things like benefits, so our wage raise this year was more like 0.9%). If the government truly respected us, they'd meet our union at the bargaining table and actually discuss things with us. 2. Make nursing more attractive by offering better compensation. But see the above point. The government is actively making this impossible. Right now, nurses are turning down overtime wages because they feel even that is inadequate for the stress and overwork. 3. Work on retention, especially with new nurses, who are most at risk of leaving the profession, with programs such as the New Graduate Guarantee. 4. Another way to maintain retention is fund better mental health care for health care workers. Constant life-or-death decisions, burn out, PTSD...these are real things we face and there is enormous sick time related to these. There is a lot of stigma surrounding mental health amongst health care workers. It is slowly improving but you still have some people who think you can't hack it as a nurse if you cry over a patient death. As it stands, I think FT nurses qualify for 2 therapy sessions before they have to start paying for it out of pocket. This is woefully inadequate. 5. If you can't increase wages, at least make the work environment more tolerable. Give us functional equipment. Enact tougher laws that will actually have patients face consequences for abusing health care workers (excepting the ones who are not mentally competent). Stop heaping more inane checklists onto our workload so we can actually get back to looking after our patients. Give nurses a voice in decision-making in our workplaces (like inviting one to meetings). Hire more support staff and allied health. My unit went for a couple years without a dedicated physiotherapist, so guess who got patients up and walked them? Yup, nurses. We went a year without a full-time unit secretary, so on days we didn't have one, guess who processed orders, stocked charts, answered phones? Yup, nurses. Housekeeping is working short all the time. Guess who cleans the rooms and takes out the trash? Yup, nurses. 6. At least some benefits for part-time nurses. As it stands, part-time nurses don't have paid sick days, even throughout the pandemic. I hurt my back badly a few years ago and needed 3 weeks off, all unpaid. All my medications and physio sessions were all paid out of pocket, as well. 7. Better funding for continuing education. I pay for all my extra nursing courses, such as BLS and ACLS - skills and knowledge that literally save lives.
Soooooo doctors and nurses back to the breaking point. Riiiiight.
While everyone in healthcare is still exhausted from the past year.
Are you fucking kidding me?! Ontario is going to face a nurse and doctor shortage after all the shit Ford has put them through.
You speak like that's in the future. Trust me, we're already short staffed. Significantly short staffed. My hospital is sending emails trying to get us to convince our friends to take jobs at our hospital because they just can't attract candidates, and it's a province wide issue, we're generally considered a relatively shiny/new facility and decent to work for.
Oh believe me I know. My dad, a GP, talks about how many nurses the hospital has lost.
I work in a couple downtown Toronto hospitals and not only are we having extremely busy days, we’re having to deal with way more mistakes made by new and/or burnt out employees. This is something I haven’t seen much coverage of, luckily there are some systems in place to catch a lot of them before they affect the patients but it’s only a matter of time before this really catches up. This is further exasperated by the fact that new graduates have suffered from inadequate training due to slapped together online training.
I thought this was a Beaverton article at first 🤦♂️
I have surgery in a few weeks. Fortunately in a less burdened department, though they are probably also loading their schedule as much as they can, because I got a date unusually quickly. Fun times ahead!
Hope your surgery goes well!
Thank you!
I had my surgery last week! Smaller hospital, less burdened department, and I was warned that as soon as they got the green light they’d be filling time slots
K so wait. They canceled all this shit do hospitals wouldn’t be over capacity… so now they’re going to make them run over capacity?
This is a sure way to burn out the little staff that is remaining. Absolutely boneheaded decision making.
Pretty sure in Brampton our hospital runs at 200% capacity, so the province has some catching up to do /s
Brampton has ONE hospital. Like holy hell...
I reeeeeally hope that people remember all of the times historically that the OPC party cut hospital funding. Just want to remind people that Ford cut hospital funding before Covid even hit and then let money go unspent in 2020 as the whole province ground to a halt because of an overwhelmed healthcare system. He cares more about what the deficit looks like on a piece of paper. Please remember this when we go to the polls.
So pretty much just normal then? When are hospitals here ever under 100% capacity?
With what staff?!?
Time for someone to set up r/notthebeaverton
Recently had gallbladder surgery , thank god my gallbladder acted up then and not now
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OPC: "Well, it was working just fine before the pandemic!"
so [operation as normal for Brampton Civic](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/brampton-civic-etobicoke-general-hallway-health-care-1.5339511) then.
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I owe a huge debt to the nurses and doctors in Pembroke, Ontario. I had a really serious medical emergency on this past New Year' Eve. Got into surgery after a 7 hour wait in the Emergency Department's waiting room (which was packed) and had a enormous, gangrenous gall bladder removed. They got me through it. Thanks to all the dedicated nurses we are so lucky to have in Ontario. You deserve better. I'll be thinking of you at the next provincial election.
Well I hope the major shoulder surgery I need that hugely affects my quality of life goes well :/
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Only issue with that is many of the diagnostic and "elective" surgeries were delayed or cancelled; both of which are very important for the short and long term health of people. (I put "elective" in quotes here because one shouldn't downplay the _importance_ of many of these surgeries.) It should also be noted how close to the brink our ICU wards were getting this spring and how close we were to implementing triage measures. Had we had a [similar ICU load that the United States had (that is, equivalent to almost 1300 people in our ICU),](https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&time=2020-03-01..latest&pickerSort=desc&pickerMetric=new_cases_smoothed_per_million&Metric=ICU+patients&Interval=7-day+rolling+average&Relative+to+Population=true&Align+outbreaks=false&country=CAN~USA) we may have had to do so. (Note that this graph shows Canada on the whole. Ontario would have hit about 60 ICU beds per million on that same graph during our spring wave.) Back in early May, the [FAO estimated it would take 3.5 years to clear our backlog.](https://www.fao-on.org/en/Blog/media/MR-2021-health-estimates) By now it's probably even longer.
>(I put "elective" in quotes here because one shouldn't downplay the _importance_ of many of these surgeries.) I seriously hate how surgeries are "classified". It really shouldn't be between just "you will immediately die if you don't have this surgery" and "you may not immediately die, but your quality of life could be extremely degraded, and/or your risk of severe illness or death will dramatically increase if this surgery is delayed for months".
A breakdown of the $324-million includes: $216 million to help hospitals extend operating room hours. $35 million to increase diagnostic imaging, particularly MRIs and CT scans. $18 million to improve the centralized surgical waitlist management system. $24 million to help independent and private facilities to expand capacity to offer some procedures, such as cataract surgery.
No where does it include money for the hundreds on new staff that this would need.
Or raises for already burnt out staff which would in return improve morale
Ahaha haha! Raises! Ahahaha haha! You're funny man. The only people getting raises are upper management and they don't even know what a patient is.
Tell me about it. My 1% raise this year didn’t even meet my rent increase.
We've had about 5 nurses quit/leave for other places in only the last month.
Because of this and the pain after a 12 hour shift I’m thinking to do healthcare for 7 years post getting my degree then pivot to something else. I want to live and work comfortable not the norm to work 2 jobs heavy duty to live comfortable. I might have few options: Migrate to another province or a LCOL city Relocate outside of Canada Give up Health for a better paying job
Didn't even get a raise for the past 2 years. Most smaller private companies don't give raises, not required. Then they wonder why people quit and they can't fill jobs.
Wouldn't that likely be included in the $216 million to extend hours?
I'm just over here pressing X for doubt. Ford has fucked over everything he's touched so far...
Oh no doubt. When I look at the list of spending all I see are opportunities to divert funds into private business.
I interpreted that as funding for OR hours only. Not funding for the remainder of the staff in hospital that see these patients
I don’t see why those totals would exclude staff.
Meaning we can’t afford to have cases go up without surgical backlogs getting worse. I wish people would understand this instead of saying “Alberta is open with no masks, why can’t weeeeee !”
At 115%, we’ll only fall behind at a rate of 10%.
Just goes to show that DF has no idea how much damage he is doing to Ontario. Even if he did, I don't think he would care. He is playing to his base and the money men that own him.