The intensive care unit at a Bowmanville hospital will be temporarily closed amid “significant staff shortages,” along with more than a dozen other Ontario hospitals expecting to reduce beds and shift care ahead of the long weekend.
An Ontario nurses union told CTV News Toronto that at least 14 hospitals will be affected.
“Long weekends always require more emergency room visits, so there’s going to be additional staffing issues, additional burnout issues,” Ontario Nurses Association president Catherine Hoy said Thursday afternoon.
At the center of the closure is a staffing crisis that Hoy said he could only compare to the Titanic.
“That’s how serious it is,” she said. “I don’t even know if there are words for it anymore.”
Hoy says Bowmanville is a community that cannot afford to lose 12 intensive care unit (ICU) beds.
But in a statement, Lakeridge Health told CTV News Toronto they had to make the “difficult decision” to temporarily close the intensive care unit and move patients to Ajax Pickering and Oshawa hospitals.
“We recognize the impact of this temporary relocation on patients and their families. This decision was not made lightly,” Lakeridge spokeswoman Sharon Navarro told CTV News Toronto.
Emergency departments in Wingham and Listowel will also be closed for parts of the long weekend.
Hoy said these closings are the result of nurses leaving the profession in droves.
Birgit Umaygba, an Ontario emergency room nurse, said she witnessed it with her own eyes. Just yesterday the intensive care unit, she had to work on suspension.
She said two more co-workers have told her they’re ready to leave, adding to the list of more than a dozen she’s seen recently leave the profession to work at Boston Pizza and Costco, some with decades of experience.
The latest figures from Statistics Canada illustrate the seriousness of the situation. Almost one in four nurses said they plan to change or leave their jobs in the next three years.
A spokesperson for Ontario’s health minister said Sylvia Jones was not available for an interview and instead shared a statement.
“Like many other jurisdictions around the world, Ontario’s health care system is under pressure due to the challenge of maintaining necessary staffing levels.”
While Hoy said it’s “too late” for a quick fix, she said repealing House Bill 124, which caps nursing pay raises at one percent, is a start.
The bill was introduced by the Ford government in 2019 as a way to “ensure that public sector compensation increases reflect the province’s fiscal situation,” the government said at the time.
But Hoy said repealing the bill is the only way to keep nurses and give them much-needed hope.
“It will be a sign of hope so people don’t keep giving up.” That they will finally, finally be recognized and that we will do something for them.”
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