Staffing shortages at small-town Ontario hospitals still shutting some ERs

Small-town hospitals in smaller Ontario communities continue to close some emergency room departments and collapse available hours because of staffing shortages.

Last Sunday, both Wingham and District Hospital and Clinton Public Hospital in southwestern Ontario shut down.

None of us want to see a situation where this becomes the norm.- Karl Ellis, president and CEO, Listowel Wingham Hospitals Alliance

"We had a short-term nursing sick call and unfortunately we were not able to backfill the staff and had to close our emergency department," said Karl Ellis, president and chief executive officer of Listowel Wingham Hospitals Alliance. 

"Our residents and community are concerned and I think justifiably so. We're doing all we can to try to make sure that that doesn't become the norm.

"Staffing in small hospitals has always been precarious, but it's particularly stressful now," said Ellis. "In a department that has two nurses working, if one of those nurses calls in sick, we may be placed in the position of closing the emergency department if we can't replace her or him."

Nearly a quarter of all registered nurses at the Wingham hospital are currently on some kind of leave.

Ellis said it's resulted in the ER closing at least once every two weeks; patients are directed to other nearby emergency rooms.

"We are fortunate in this part of southwestern Ontario that there are quite a number of hospitals with emergency departments," said Ellis. 

An example of a closure notice:

"We're dealing with probably the worst staffing crisis we've experienced in decades," said Andrew Williams, president and CEO of the Huron Perth Healthcare Alliance, which runs hospitals in Clinton, St. Marys, Seaforth and Stratford.

In addition to shutting down on Sunday, Clinton's hospital has been running on reduced hours (8 a.m. to 6 p.m.) for the last three years.

St Marys Memorial Hospital also reduced its hours for one day, last Saturday.

"It has nothing to do with money and everything to do with availability of staff," said Williams, who figures his hospital emergency departments need about a 20 per cent increase in staff.

"We either need more people coming into the system or we need to look at how the system is structured and align it more with the staffing reality that we're facing."

"Our government knows emergency departments across the country have faced capacity pressures year after year," said Hannah Jensen, spokesperson for Ontario's minister of health. "We know the status quo is not working and more needs to be done." 

In another part of the province, Louise Marshall Hospital in Mount Forest announced Wednesday its emergency department will be closed overnight Thursday at 7 p.m. ET and reopen Friday at 7 a.m. due to a staffing shortage.

The hospital is urging people to call 911 in the event of a medical emergency. It also lists nearby hospitals people can go to, but notes some of their ERs may be closed as well, so advises to check if they're open before heading there.

The province says it's hired more than 60,000 new nurses since 2018 and nearly 8,000 new physicians have registered to work in Ontario.

The province also now allows doctors and nurses trained in other provinces to start work immediately and has given some foreign-trained nurses the green light to register in a temporary class so they begin working sooner as well.