hospital calls for doctors, medical students to fill nursing shortages

the ottawa hospital has put out an urgent request for doctors and medical students to fill in for nurses as the health care staffing crisis worsens.in a message sent to all medical staff this week, the hospital’s senior medical officer said the covid-19 situation “has brought us to the point where there is a significant strain on our ability to deliver health care services at toh.”hospitals and other health institutions in ontario are facing critical staff shortages and sharply rising demand amid record high covid cases driven by the omicron variant.“the increased patient numbers and necessity of opening beds in unconventional spaces, coupled with staff shortages due to covid illness, has led to a critical lack of personnel to care for these patients,” dr. kathleen gartke wrote in the memo headed “urgent action required”.the hospital, she wrote, is reaching out to an expanded group, including physicians and “health-care learners,” for volunteers to assist with bedside patient care. volunteers would be functioning “in a non-physician role” in areas in need of help — essentially doing the work of nurses.the work would be done under supervision, according to the memo, and physicians, although not medical students and residents, who volunteer to do the work would be paid $170 or $220 an hour. the higher amount applies when work is done weekends, holidays or after hours. that is the same amount ontario physicians who volunteered to work in vaccination clinics have been paid during the pandemic. it is also about three times as much as nurses with 25 years experience earn for the same work, noted rachel muir, a nurse at the ottawa hospital and president of the local bargaining unit of the ontario nurses’ association.medical students can be paid $18.73 an hour for the work.spokeswoman rebecca abelson said the call-out was a new initiative. “like other hospitals in the region, toh is redeploying staff to assist with the increased need for patient care during this wave of the covid-19 pandemic.” the hospital continues to actively recruit nurses and other health-care professionals, she said.the ottawa hospital and other hospitals have redeployed nurses to other jobs during the pandemic. nurses and some physicians in the province worked as psws to help hard-hit long-term care homes during earlier waves, but this is believed to be the first time doctors have been asked to provide bedside nursing care in ottawa to ease staff shortages.the memo, which has been reviewed by this newspaper, is a sign of the way the pandemic — especially during this omicron-driven wave — is forcing health-care institutions to look for solutions to critical staff shortages and other challenges. earlier this month, the ontario government postponed all but urgent and emergency surgeries and procedures to take pressure off overwhelmed hospitals. but the pressure continues to build.“we are so desperately short of front-line staff that they are starting to have to look at other people,” muir said. but bringing in physicians, medical students or other students raises other concerns for nurses, she added.

among those concerns is that the move will add to the workloads of nurses who are already exhausted. medical students need additional supervision, she said.“they need guidance and teaching, as any student needs,” muir said, adding that medical students did not receive the same medical education as nursing students.and she said any good physician recognized that they were not trained to do bedside care.help is badly needed, she said, but things should not have reached this point.“we need the help, absolutely. we are at the point where we will take whatever help we can get, but it is concerning that we are even at this point. we have been banging this drum for 20 years that we are short of health-care providers. we have managed, but, because of this mass exodus (due to illness and nurses leaving during the pandemic), we are desperate and having to get extremely inventive,” she said.“it is sad and frightening. our health-care system should be better than this.”among other things, many nurses blame ontario’s bill 124, which caps wages along with restrictions on bargaining and vacations, for driving nurses away from the profession.the ontario government announced this week that it was bringing foreign trained nurses in to work at hospitals, as well as nursing students, to help ease staff shortages.queensway carleton hospital has not asked physicians and medical students to fill nursing shifts, spokeswoman kelly spence said, but nursing students are working on wards and some clinical managers have “put scrubs back on” to help.it and other hospitals are also considering bringing in non-clinical staff such as administrators to help watch over, feed or help patients or to assist nurses by getting items they need.the staff members could support clinical teams, but would not provide clinical support, spence said.ontario reported 3,630 patients in hospitals with covid-19 on wednesday, and 500 people in intensive care. there were 35 new deaths.ottawa public health reported 57 patients in hospital and eight in intensive care thursday, but the hospitals report significantly higher numbers. the difference is partly explained because hospitals may report patients admitted for other reasons, but who test positive for covid-19. as of tuesday, the ottawa hospital had 126 patients with covid-19. as of wednesday, there were 82 patients admitted to queensway carleton hospital who had tested positive for covid-19, including patients admitted for other medical reasons, and montfort hospital reported 42 patients who had covid-19.