By GREG NIKKEL, of the Weyburn Review
The South Central Health District is not in the same position as Regina, which is scrambling to fill vacant nursing positions, but some problems are expected to arise this summer, the board was told at its monthly meeting on Thursday.
All health districts were recently required to submit a report to the provincial health authorities about any nursing shortages they were having. South Central reported that all of their nursing positions are filled at the current time, said Marga Cugnet, vice-president of patient services.
"We have less available nurses in our casual pool," said Cugnet, adding this may cause a problem this summer when vacations start, and nurses may be asked to stagger their vacation times to offset the problem.
"We're not in the same position as Regina, although out in Bengough and Coronach we've had to pay some overtime to nurses," she said.
The issue was discussed earlier in the board meeting, as CEO Lee Spencer reported on a forum he attended for health district CEOs. He said Health Minister Pat Atkinson told the CEOs that health districts need to come up with more creative ways to retain people to avoid such shortages as is being experienced by Regina Health District, forcing them to close down a number of beds.
One way to do that, said the minister, would be to reduce the amount of casual time and increase the number of permanent positions, an issue under discussion in the current negotiations between the Saskatchewan Union of Nurses and the agent for the health districts, the Saskatchewan Association of Health Organizations.
This was also the view of Liberal leader Jim Melenchuk, who said health districts are taking the cheapest route to staffing.
"There are regulations in place for minimal staffing, but there aren't any requirements in mixing full-time and casual workers. Nurses don't qualify for pension benefits unless they have logged 700 hours in a year. This has been a bone of contention for a number of years," he said.
When a health district reports all of their positions are filled, he said, "what percentage of that are full-time nurses? The number we're seeing is an average of 35 to 40 per cent. These people want to save bucks associated with full-time employment, then they complain they can't get their casual pool up."
The Liberal leader said with Regina recruiting vigourously to fill its vacant positions, this may draw in nurses who can only find casual hours in rural health districts, and will then cause a nursing shortage for the rural districts.
The minimum staffing standard may also be allowing health districts to fill their long-term wards, such as special care homes, with LPNs, without there necessarily being an RN on staff for an overnight shift, said Melenchuk. This would mean if a patient requires a dose of medication, they may not be able to get it until an RN comes on shift.
"Cutting back on the number of full-time nurses may save dollars, but it's not a good way to meet patient needs," said Melenchuk.
Spencer said the CEOs also talked about the two-year nursing program being abolished and the effect this will have on the number of nurses.
Cugnet told the board the first graduates of the nursing education program will be coming out this year, with 60-some graduates expected to convocate, followed by the first year of the full program who will be graduating next year.
"We have seen that there's going to be a nursing shortage, and that's because of a whole lot of factors. It's not looked at as a profession of choice," said Cugnet.
She noted the move to the new program has been gradually underway over the span of the last 10 years, and the new program is becoming the acceptable level of training throughout the country.
The board also approved two requests for capital expenditures at the Weyburn General Hospital on Thursday.
Cugnet told the board the first equipment purchase will be for two operating tables worth a total of $90,585, as the hospital has experienced problems with two of them.
"The first table was from 1945, which is even older than I thought it was, coming over from Mount St. Mary's," she said, adding these tables were not designed to do the kind of procedures that specialists are doing now at the hospital.
Cugnet said the operating rooms are going four days a week, and a remanufactured table would only be about $3,000 less than these new ones will cost.
The second approved purchase is for a haematology analyzer worth $81,750, to replace a 10-year-old one which requires the lab technicians to handle individual samples of blood by hand. The lab processes roughly 700 CBCs a month, said the vice-president.
"It goes down more frequently, and it's caused great frustration with technologists," said Cugnet, adding that opening individual blood samples is very labour-intensive. The new machine can deal with 80 per cent of the blood samples automatically, without a technologist having to touch it.
Asked if these items had gone as a request to the SCHD Foundation, the board was told they were asked, but the foundation has committed a major amount of funds towards replacing equipment for the Intensive Care and Cardiac Care Units at the hospital.
Meanwhile, the health district is also asking for tenders to fix the roof at the hospital, although some board members expressed the fear this may jeopardize approval of a new hospital facility by Sask. Health.
"This was a project identified a number of years ago. We've been monitoring our financial resources to see where we were, at the same time monitoring the condition of the roof," said Ken Adams, vice-president of facilities. Some leaks have been reported in the Operating Room and maternity areas, and the board was asked for approval to go to tender immediately. The first ads for tenders will be in today's paper, and again next week, with the hope the project will be underway by mid-April.
"I understand you can't have leaks in a hospital, but I can see our new hospital going out the window. They're going to say up in Regina, 'this facility can go another 20 years', fixing a little bit here and a little bit there," said board member Joanne Schurko.
Adams said this problem first arose in 1990, and the board of the time made a poor decision to provide a temporary fix to the roof.
The health district is also issuing a proposal call for the 12 units of Pioneer Place, located near the Crocus Villa. The board was told the property has been appraised, and the board retains the right to accept or reject any offer made to buy the property.
Schurko asked if residents should receive a letter informing them of this move, instead of finding out by reading it in the paper, and the other board members agreed.
On a request from the SCHD Foundation for an operating grant, the board approved the request to grant them $40,000 for one year, after which time it will be reviewed.
Lee Spencer told the board the foundation asked for the funds as most of the donations and gifts they receive are designated for specific projects or pieces of equipment.
"They have little flexibility to do other things," he said, adding the foundation may have to charge an administrative tax on all gifts if their operating expenses could not be covered by a grant. The board was told the foundation gave the health district around $200,000 last year, which went towards equipment purchases in the district. The foundation had received a start-up loan of $40,000, which was repaid to the health district once they were up and running.
"If we give it to them, we can monitor it in a year's time," said board chairman Ernest Elder.
"I think it's a good investment, because we're really going to need them in the next few years," added board member Ralph Toothill.
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