BROCKTON – Brockton council has heard the 48 recommendations made by consultant Carol De Rosie in her third-party review of the nurse shortage at South Bruce Grey Health Centre (SBGHC).
That shortage led to the overnight closure of emergency rooms at the Chesley site for over two years, and now the Walkerton site since Dec. 27, 2021.
After a lengthy discussion in open council and further discussion in closed at the Feb. 22 meeting, council announced its next steps.
A staff report on the review presented council with two options.
The first was to send the report to the Friends of the Walkerton and Chesley Hospitals group, MPPs Lisa Thompson and Bill Walker, the physician recruitment committee, SBGHC CEO Michael Barrett, and SBGHC board chair Bill Heikkila, and offer Brockton’s support on initiatives towards nurse recruitment and retention as outlined.
Two was to invite Barrett and Heikkila to attend an upcoming meeting of council to present their action plan on strategies for nursing recruitment and retention, and canvas ways that Brockton can support their action plans.
Council decided to go ahead with both options. In addition, council passed a motion to support De Rosie’s study and to seek the support of the councils of Kincardine, Arran-Elderslie and County of Bruce in encouraging SBGHC to “review and adopt” the recommendations.
Coun. Steve Adams commended De Rosie for an “outstanding report” that was “very much needed for the community.” He included Hanover in that. “They’re affected too,” he said.
Adams expressed support for the call for patient safety, collaboration and engagement, and spoke of the emails he’s received from concerned members of the community, one of which stated, “We need our leaders working behind us, not above us.”
Coun. Kym Hutcheon said, “I hope management gets on board with this.”
There was discussion about the need for nurses to be able to speak up when they feel they aren’t able to provide safe care. There is a form that allows them to do that, but it hasn’t been used lately. De Rosie said the feeling was they weren’t being paid attention to, but noted nurses have started filling them out again.
Coun. Dean Leifso asked about workload, and one recommendation that would have a management person involved in a very hand-on way. De Rosie said it would “put the problem solvers right on site.” That “second set of hands” might not be able to provide care, but could assist with other tasks such as calling in additional staff.
Peabody said a citizens group has been meeting with both local MPPs, and there’s been talk of the three hospital corporations in Grey-Bruce meeting.
Third-party report
At the Jan. 11 council meeting, the decision was made to contract with Carol De Rosie, RN, to conduct a third-party review with a focus on opportunities to mitigate nursing shortages at the South Bruce Grey Health Centre to ensure sustainable services and the reopening of the emergency rooms at the Walkerton and Chesley sites. De Rosie was given some specific objectives based on council’s intent, including examining the challenges of retaining and recruiting of nurses, providing recommendations to mitigate the nursing shortages at SBGHC, facilitate the reopening of the emergency departments, gather information from other sources, and conduct interviews with area nurses as available. De Rosie was unable to interview SBGHC’s leadership team.
De Rosie has completed and presented her report entitled Critical Nursing Shortage at South Bruce Grey Health Centre: Multi-site.
She stated in her report that “there has always been a focus on recruitment rather than retention in health care. This is backwards… All unions representing nurses in this organization need to come to the table immediately and engage in a conversation focused on removing barriers to retaining nurses.”
De Rosie identified one major area of contention as hiring nurses for multi-site positions. “This was a major issue for nurses,” she said in her report, which recommended changing all positions to one site only.
The report further recommended changing all positions to single-specialty ones.
Among her other recommendations were meetings between all nurses on all shifts, and management; regular satisfaction surveys; free parking for nurses; paid education days for nurses; and create an education fund for nurses; cover nurses’ tuition costs, time off, travel and accommodation costs, etc. for nurses to obtain certifications required for employment. The report had further recommendations regarding nurses booking overtime shifts for a month at a time to “allow nurses some control over their lives where they can… have some work/life balance while filling vacancies.”
There were recommendation on social activities celebrating special days like St. Patrick’s Day, staff forums to be held on a regular basis.
The possibility was discussed of bringing in management and “other allied health professionals” to support nursing staff for a shift when it is known a specific area is understaffed and presents a possible risk.
