Saskatchewan
A Health System in Crisis
Children's Hospital
Saskatchewan's children's hospital is buckling under the pressure of too many patients, too little space, and too few registered nurses.
Pediatrics is a specialty. Kids aren't just little adults. There isn't a slow, steady slope of deterioration. Kids might be doing okay, and we keep putting things off because we just don't have the time or there's a sicker patient that needs care faster and then suddenly, we're taking that kid to intensive care.
Registered nursing shortages mean kids wait longer than is safe for care.
- Racheal RN,Pediatrics
4x more kids need care
Causing an emergency room (ER) capacity crisis.
The worst shifts are where we have really sick kids in the waiting room, we're not able to move into beds.
Sometimes I triage a kid myself at the beginning of my shift and they're still in the waiting room when I leave in the morning.
They've literally been there for 12 hours. We all know this isn't the kind of care we want to give. We're doing the best we can, but the resources aren't good enough.
- Britney RN, Pediatrics
On occasion, parents have waited in their cars with their sick children due to a lack of space in the ER.
The last couple years,
we've really seen an increase of kids coming in with suicidal thoughts.
It's really hard and scary for them, and we often don't have the time and resources to be able to help them as much as we would like to.
- Jerrilyn RN, Pediatrics
The pediatric unit at the children's hospital is overflowing, often unable to admit more kids.
For children, play is a huge aspect of getting better, but unfortunately, we've had to convert our playrooms and all of our family room spaces to patient care areas. Our rooms are no longer all private. Some hold three to four children, plus parents sleeping on cots on the floor. We have shared oxygen, shared call bells.
You see nurses coming in with fear in their eyes,
knowing we don't have enough to safely staff our unit.
- David RN, Pediatrics
88% of registered nurses report knowing of a time when patients were at risk due to short-staffing.
- March 2023, SUN Member Survey
There are solutions
There are sustainable solutions to the nursing crisis, starting with a Nursing Task Force to help repair the broken system, with stakeholders at the table.
See the solutions
Emergency rooms
Saskatoon and Regina emergency rooms are struggling to keep up with demand due to severe staffing shortages, leaving waiting rooms overflowing and patients waiting up to 16 hours for care.
With registered nurses often working with a shortfall of up to 50%, patients are lining hallways and even cardiac monitoring and dangerous narcotic administration are happening in waiting rooms, putting patient safety at risk.
Urgent action is needed to address this critical situation.
When a critical incidence happens in the waiting room and
we've had to perform advanced life support in front of a horde of people,
and it doesn't end in a favorable way for the patient or family, we can never truly digest that as a nurse.
- Wyatt ER nurse, Regina
Admitted patients have waited in ER hallways for up to 150 hours
That's 6+ days for a bed on the overcapacity wards.
That's 6+ days for a bed on the overcapacity wards.
Putting an elderly person in a hallway to wait for a bed upstairs for hours or even days is wrong.
They deserve to have care on a ward with nurses who are dedicated to their care. A hallway is not a safe place for them.
- Megan ER nurse, Regina
ER delays cause other emergency responders to be held up, risking communities.
Regina General hospital
had 9 ambulances, 6 police cars, and 1 fire truck waiting during one shift.
Saskatoon's Royal University Hospital
had 12 city ambulances stuck for 12 hours at the ER unable to offload patients.
My biggest moral injury is when
EMS crew can't offload patients because there are no beds.
They're left in back hallways for hours. As a nurse, you think 'what if the next call is a 3-year-old having an anaphylactic reaction and there's no one to come and rescue them.
- Sara ER nurse, Saskatoon
In some of the province's largest ERs
up to 50% of new nursing graduates leave the high-stress environment within six months.
Retaining senior nurses as mentors is critical.
Many units in Moose Jaw do not have senior registered nurses to act as mentors.
On the inpatient surgery unit most have less than 5 years' experience. This creates an environment where junior nurses feel overwhelmed starting their careers, and then they often look for different employment where they may have more senior staff to learn from.
- Bailey RN, Moose Jaw
Almost 60% of registered nurses say they have seriously considered leaving the profession in the last year.
- March 2023, SUN Member Survey
There are solutions
There are sustainable solutions to the nursing crisis, starting with a Nursing Task Force to help repair the broken system, with stakeholders at the table.
See the solutions
Regional facilities
Regional facilities are hubs for smaller towns, sometimes supporting a 300 km area.
Surgeries at regional hospitals are being delayed 10+ hours
due to staffing shortages, adding risk and stress for patients.
When we have our surgeries delayed, if it's a critical procedure, we know that having to wait increases the risk of side effects and adverse events,
and ultimately increases the risk of death,
both from the complications of their illness or from the procedure itself.
- Natalie Perioperative Nurse, Loydminster
Regional hospital ICUs often go on bypass to Regina and Saskatoon due to staffing shortages of registered nurses. Emergency rooms also suffer from low nurse staffing, resulting in a higher volume of patients.
Some of the biggest driving pressures are rural facilities going on bypass due to nursing shortages. They cannot accept medical patients. Our hospital's full.
There are medical patients waiting in rooms that emergency patients should be in.
These patients can't get to Regina because they're also full. And we can be working with just two RNs on a shift. To me, that's scary.
- Courtney ER nurse, Yorkton
We're down half of our full-time nurses. Because of that, we're also down to half of our inpatient beds. We're at about 50 percent time in our afterhours operating room, and maternity services are also on bypass about half of the time.
Say your child needs an emergency appendicitis and our OR is not open. The closest place is an hour and a half, two hours away.
- karen RN, Meadow Lake
There are solutions
There are sustainable solutions to the nursing crisis, starting with a Nursing Task Force to help repair the broken system, with stakeholders at the table.
See the solutions
The solutions
There are sustainable solutions to the nursing crisis, starting with a Nursing Task Force to help repair the broken system, with stakeholders at the table.
RETAIN:
Incentivize mid-career and senior nurses to stay to support and mentor new graduates, and international recruits.
RETURN:
Engage Saskatchewan's existing nurses. Incentivize casual nurses to go full-time, and early/recent retirees to return.
RECRUIT:
- Educate a homegrown, Saskatchewan nursing workforce.
- Advance opportunities for Indigenous, First Nations and Metis youth to pursue a career in nursing,
- Streamline bridging programs for Licensed Practical Nurses to become Registered Nurses,
- Attract out-of-province skilled registered nurses to Saskatchewan, and
- Maximize the scope Nurse Practitioners in the delivery of primary, team-based care.
One of the ways forward out of this crisis is to include nurses at the table.
We have insight from the floor. We have ideas.
- June RN Nurse
Indigenous representation in nursing is so important.
We need to look at people who are on reserves, who are willing to enter nursing programs. They have the language and culture pieces,
which might help clients in crisis open up more.
- Shelley RN, Prince Albert
Saskatchewan needs more nurses.
We need to retain our senior nurses so that we can competently care for both the junior nurses and their patients.
We need to stop worrying about reactive care, and we need to look at preventative health measures.
- Tanzly RN, Saskatoon
