The Sturgeon Community Hospital has not been immune to hospital bed closures due to staffing shortages in the province.
On Sunday, July 25, three out of the 43 emergency department (ED) spaces in the hospital were temporarily closed due to staffing shortages.
The shortages were the result of a small number of staff calling in sick, said Kerry Williamson, executive director of Alberta Health Services.
During those 24 hours there was no reduction in care in the emergency department and EMS was not diverted, said Williamson in an emailed statement to The Gazette. Patient flow for hospitals in the Edmonton Zone is managed centrally.
Sharon Lloyd has been a registered nurse for 35 years. She has worked at the Sturgeon since 2000 and is the first vice president for the Sturgeon’s nurse’s union. She works on the general surgery unit.
Lloyd said there have been a lot of short-notice sick calls.
“People are tired, people are sick, people are burned out. They can't come to work unless they can give 110 per cent. It's just too busy. So, yeah, we're often left short on the unit,” said Lloyd.
August long weekend is notoriously tough to staff, Lloyd said. That on top of outstanding vacancies on the nursing lines means AHS has opted to close beds.
“If they don't have their vacancies filled, and then we have short-notice sick calls, or vacations they have to cover, they just don't have enough staff. They don't have enough casuals and they don't have enough backup,” Lloyd explained.
In a press conference at the information picket on Monday, July 26, at the Sturgeon Community Hospital, Orissa Shima, the local union representative, said there are more than 26 vacancies at the hospital, and the result is critical staff shortages on some shifts.
Shima said closing inpatient surgery beds is not a normal practice in the summer and the vacancies are contributing to the problem.
In a letter addressed to St. Albert Stakeholders obtained by The Gazette and a series of Tweets published on July 23, AHS stated the Sturgeon will also be experiencing planned temporary bed closures this summer.
From July 26 to 30, one surgical operating room will be closed due to planned operating-room expansion. The surgical unit will close five in-patient beds during the construction.
The expansion will add two operating rooms to the hospital in 2022.
The surgery unit will also close nine beds from Aug. 3 to 6 due to short-term staffing issues. Elective day surgeries will increase during this time for the Sturgeon, which will decrease the demand for inpatient, overnight care, said AHS in the statement.
Lloyd said in the past they have slowed down units due to vacations by staff, but they have lost an entire surgical unit.
“We were told in June that we were going ahead, they're trying to get the surgical backlog caught up because of the pandemic, that we were not going to be closing any beds. [Bed closures] came up this past week and it’s because staffing has been tough,” said Lloyd.
Lloyd said bed closures could affect the public in a few ways: If a patient isn’t able to go anywhere, they might end up on a stretcher in an overcapacity space. Or there might be too many patients to staff and care could be compromised.
“It could be as simple as not getting out of bed, not getting toileted often enough, having to be incontinent because [a patient] couldn't get to a bathroom, not getting water, just because you can't bring them water. Not doing those extra things that just make a patient stay safe and comfortable,” said Lloyd.
Michelle Mclean, a registered nurse in the ICU, said everyone in the hospital is affected by bed closures.
“It pushes patients into places that we shouldn't have to put patients. So, it's not fair to them. It's not fair to us, really, for patients that are suffering,” said Maclean.
AHS also reported seven temporary ED treatment space closures at Red Deer Regional Hospital on July 23 due to staffing shortages. This follows closures due to staffing shortages at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Edmonton and multiple rural locations across the province.
NDP leader Rachel Notley and St. Albert MLA Marie Renaud held a press conference calling on the government to take action over the ongoing staffing shortages across the province and proposed wage cuts for nurses at the Sturgeon on Monday during the nurse’s information picket outside the hospital.
Notley said the province is driving nurses out of Alberta while larger provinces are providing incentives for nurses to move.
“That’s a serious threat to the long-term strength of our public health-care system,” said Notley.
Notley said the proposed wage cuts for nurses are shameful.
“We have a backlog of Albertans with untreated conditions and we have an exhausted health-care workforce,” stated Notley.
In an emailed statement, UCP Morinville-St. Albert MLA Dale Nally said the NDP is manufacturing a crisis to try to scare Albertans.
“They claim that the Sturgeon hospital is in a state of crisis due to these temporary and short-term closures, yet not a single patient or ambulance was turned away or rerouted from Sturgeon.
“I want to assure all constituents that the Sturgeon Community Hospital remains open for any patient needing care,” said Nally.
