Nurses and hospital staff described the situation as dire.
Although COVID-positive cases are not overwhelming the health care system as they were at the beginning of the pandemic, the virus is now impacting the health care system in Ottawa and Ontario differently.
“It’s not going to get better anytime soon, it’s just going to get worse, and I think it’s going to get worse quickly,” said Ottawa nurse Kristy Cowan.
Her candid words come as she experiences the shortage on the front lines. Cowan says hospital staff are exhausted, overworked and struggling to keep up.
“Morale is very low, nurses are tired, exhausted, almost everyone I work with is on some type of anxiety or depression medication and therapy,” she said.
The problem – some describe it as a secondary effect of the COVID-19 pandemic. Although hospitals are no longer overwhelmed with COVID-positive patients, the impact of the virus is still being felt.
“It’s not COVID per se because it’s not sick COVID patients in the hospital, it’s like the secondary effects,” said Dr. Kwadwo Kyeremanteng, an intensive care physician at the Ottawa Hospital.
“We’re seeing ERs closing, ICUs going down, we’re struggling to cover shifts; this is not a problem with a short-term solution, this is having meaningful and long-term solutions to rebuild our health care system better,” said Dr. Isaac Bogoch, an infectious disease physician in Toronto.
It comes as another wave of COVID in the province has grown, according to several experts, but they also say this stage of the pandemic is not yet over.
“Covid is not going anywhere and these problems that we are seeing do not have easy solutions, unfortunately,” said Dr Kieremanteng.
And so, without answers to a serious problem, some workers are already making tough decisions.
“Nurses no longer need many reasons to leave the hospital, to leave the bed, and some are leaving the profession. With bigger workloads, more stress and less time off, it’s happening faster and faster,” Cowan said.
Now, even though the health system suffers from staffing problems, one message from health professionals has not changed at all: if you are sick and need care, don’t hesitate to go to the hospital.
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