Sixth wave of COVID-19 burning out nurses: union

The sixth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic is pushing nurses at the Ottawa Hospital to the brink, one local union is warning.

Rachel Muir is the Ottawa Hospital bargaining unit president for the Ontario Nurses' Association and a registered nurse at the general campus.

“There's rarely a shift goes by where a unit will have full staff,” Muir told CityNews' The Rob Snow Show on April 19.

Nurses are strained under higher workloads as COVID-19 related absences are compounding existing staffing shortages at the hospital.

“Morale is as low as it could possibly be,” Muir said. “They're exhausted, they're not getting vacations, they're not getting time off and they're coming in on their days off to do over time.”

At the Ottawa Hospital, nurses are regularly staying late and coming in early to try to cover gaps in staffing during shift changes. According to Muir, Ontario needs to increase its supply of trained nurse by 22,000 personnel and there are no quick fixes to this human resources issue. Changes are needed in the education system and in employment practices at health care systems in Ontario.

“The biggest barrier is time, it takes so long for them to be able to pull everything together,” she said. “The College of Nurses of Ontario is very slow to facilitate this.”

Muir said it can take years for a foreign-trained nurse to achieve the proper credentials to begin working in Ontario, a delay that means some candidates simply find a new profession that is easier to get into. 

Listen to the full conversation with Rachel Muir: