EASTERN ZONE: The provincial minister of Health and Wellness says as a result of the $10,000 incentive program to return to the system, the Eastern Zone has gained a total of 88 full-time nurses across 12 primary care locations.
A total of 148 nurses returned to work province-wide; locally, St. Martha’s gained 12, Guysborough Memorial added 11, Strait Richmond recruited an additional six, while continuing care in Port Hawkesbury will grow by one.
While it didn’t indicate locations, a release from the province explained 34 “hard-to-fill” positions, which have been posted for at least 90 days, are now staffed thanks to the initiative.
“We were able to recruit a total of 148 nurses who were in casual positions back to permanent positions,” Antigonish MLA Michelle Thompson told The Reporter. “Some will be permanent full-time and some will be permanent part-time. But it’s important they switch from causal nurses to part of that permanent employment status.”
As for where the 148 nurses came from, she advised they were nurses already in the system who were choosing to work casual.
“Some would be retired, but there would be some folks who choose to work casually for a number of reasons, and there may actually have been a couple travel nurses included in that as well,” Thompson said. “So it really is around bringing people back into the publically-funded system as past and permanent employees.”
It’s really exciting, she said, whereas casual employees don’t have a set schedule and oftentimes, don’t have benefits either.
Hearing the news that 12 additional full-time nurses would become available to St. Martha’s Regional Hospital, the warden of the Municipality of the County of Antigonish told The Reporter there has been a complete focus on health care, highlighting COVID-19 has underscored some of the challenges.
“Recruitment and retention of health care practitioners, whether its doctors, nurses or whatever, it’s certainly so important to our community,” McCarron said. “When you’re running a regional facility like St. Martha’s, it’s really encouraging to hear when those numbers are being recruited into our community.”
Having this additional resource, he said, will take the pressures off some of the other nurses.
“You hear stories of nurses being called in for a lot of overtime, and those folks need time to be with their families and decompress a little bit, when they’re in the midst of it all the time,” McCarron said. “It’s good news when the province is looking at these thigs, and trying to fill those gaps.”
Thompson advised the addition of the 148 nurses will be the equivalent of adding 270,000 hours per year of direct care for patients.
“It’s a great thing and it’s predictably added. We appreciate our casual employees because they do help us fill vacancies in our roster,” she said. “To know those hours are going to be consistently filled by an individual, who is scheduled, is going to be really significant.”
When asked on potential shortages in Antigonish, Guysborough, Richmond and Inverness Counties, the minister of health and wellness suggested rural locations have been experiencing issues but highlighted the 88 nurses in the Quad County area, will be a significant impact.
Speaking on the fact Nova Scotia Health recruited 140 permanent nurses, with 131 of them being former casual employees, two retirees, two travel nurses and five private nurses, she doesn’t have any concern only a handful of new nurses were recruited.
“I think it really is around the predictability, and the point of the incentive was we wanted to thank folks who had worked in that fiscal year, and we also wanted to really support people coming back into the system,” Thompson said. “When you have a small organization, six nurses to come and fill a schedule, like the situation is at the Strait Richmond Hospital, is pretty terrific.”
In health care, she advised nurse’s schedules are made in six and 12 week rosters at a time, and to know they aren’t chasing vacancies to fill the shifts allows people to focus on the facility itself rather than focusing on trying to fill the shifts.
President of the Nova Scotia Nurses’ Union, Janet Hazelton called the 148 permanent hires across the province as being fantastic, but still highlighted the province is still short by approximately 2,000 nurses.
Breakdown of 88 Eastern Zone nurses
Cape Breton Regional 20
St Martha’s Regional 12
Glace Bay 12
Guysborough Memorial 11
Northside General 10
Strait Richmond 6
Taigh Na Mara 5
Sacred Heart 4
Harbourview Hospital 3
New Waterford 3
Buchanan Memorial 1
Port Hawkesbury 1