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 "We're just burnt out all the time," Earhart said. She says she will
miss her colleagues, and might have stayed if working conditions
were better.
The COVID-19 pandemic and its highly contagious Omicron variant have
made a challenging staffing situation in Canada's hospitals worse.
Interviews with a dozen health care workers, including eight current
and former nurses, reveal a health system strained by a pandemic
wave that hit at the worst possible time - sickness sidelining staff
as more COVID-19 patients than ever need hospitalization, forcing
health workers exhausted by two unrelenting years to take on more
work.
Hospitals have been asking staff to forego holidays or take on
overtime shifts.
Canadians take pride in their public health system. But by failing
to adequately invest in it, critics say, governments left it
vulnerable to the ravages of a years-long public health emergency.
If health workers leave and are not replaced - thanks to training
and certification backlogs, capped wages or the perception of a
punishing profession - that could hurt health system capacity.
Job vacancies in Canada's health and social assistance sector
increased by 78.8% between the third quarter of 2019 and the third
quarter of 2021, according to Statistics Canada.
Ontario's government, which has come under fire for capping the
salaries of some public employees, including nurses, before the
pandemic, said in a statement it added 6,700 health care workers and
staff since the pandemic began and planned to add another 6,000 by
March. It did not clarify whether this was a net increase.
'I JUST DIDN'T HAVE ANY MORE TO GIVE'
Lindsay Peltsch knew she had to quit when she stopped wanting to
bathe her patients.
"I still did that but I didn't get the same sense of satisfaction
anymore," she said. "It seems small but it's a big deal because
people's dignity is a big part of what we do."
Peltsch worked for 12 years as a pediatric nurse, 10 of them at
SickKids hospital in Toronto. She fell in love with nursing but the
strain became too much, she said.
Fully staffed shifts became a rarity. One of her last ER shifts was
10 nurses short. She also feels there is a lack of respect for the
profession.
"I just got to a point where I just didn't have any more to give."
A SickKids spokesperson said that the hospital "has experienced
challenges related to staffing" but was not aware of critical care
unit shifts being short 10 nurses.
Praveen Nakesvaran and his respiratory therapist colleagues at
Humber River Hospital have taken on roles normally filled by nurses
when they prone COVID-19 patients - rolling them, tubes and all,
gingerly onto their stomachs in hopes that will boost lung function.
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 "Usually we're just at the head
of the bed: We make sure the tube is secure,"
Nakesvaran said. "Now we're kind of doing the
nursing jobs, as well." Suzi Laj
an intensive care unit manager at the hospital says she knows morale
has been an issue and has sought to address it through everything
from daily huddles to bringing in chaplaincy staff. They are "trying
to keep them hopeful and, you know, supporting them ... but their
resilience is really wearing," she said.
Public health experts say Omicron's peak may be approaching in
Canada, and Ontario announced plans last week to loosen
restrictions. But for now the health worker crunch remains.
Some provinces have made provisions for health care workers to
return to work soon after testing positive for COVID-19; Ontario is
letting internationally trained nurses, who often face hurdles and
long waits before being able to practice in Canada, get on-the-job
experience in hospitals.
Manitoba, meanwhile, said it will send hundreds of patients to get
procedures in North Dakota because its hospitals lack capacity.
'WE ARE NOT ASKING FOR AN EASIER JOB'
When one Montreal ER nurse came down with a bad case of laryngitis
during a shift, she felt torn between staying at work to help her
colleagues and going home to rest and wait for COVID-19 test
results, she told Reuters.
The young nurse, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of
work reprisals, said she was encouraged to complete her shift since
her co-workers badly needed the help.
"It was really more guilt than anything," she said.
"You feel like you're leaving those who are working in a really
tough spot."
 Doris Grinspun, CEO of the Registered Nurses' Association of
Ontario, gets calls from nurses across the province wondering how
they will cope. "All the hospital are scrambling."
It translates, she said, to "unsafe care."
When Peltsch talks to her former co-workers, "they're like, 'Don't
come back.' … A resilient group of people is starting to crumble,"
she said.
"We are not asking for an easier job. We are asking to be able to do
the hard job we signed up for safely."
(Reporting by Anna Mehler Paperny; Editing by Denny Thomas and
Aurora Ellis)
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