Staff shortages have closed Kenora hospital's ICU 14 times since Sept. 2021

The president and CEO of the Lake of the Woods District Hospital says his intensive care unit has closed 14 times since September of last year due to staffing shortages.

Ray Racette said the 12-hour closures were mainly due to a lack of available nurses.

The hospital was able to care for most ICU patients in the emergency room during the closures, he said, but "one or two," had to be transferred to Thunder Bay.

Around 55 per cent of the staff positions in ICU are currently unfilled, he said.

"We are seeing staffing shortages unprecedented in our history as a hospital," Racette said during a news conference Wednesday. "Across all our services, we have vacancies we've never seen before."

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the hospital was short-staffed by around seven to 10 per cent, he said.

Now it's around 22 per cent.

Though it's hard to know if the shortage has led to a worsening of any health conditions, "it's certainly less safe than it would be if you had a fully staffed service," he said. 

Around 44 per cent of the positions in the Kenora emergency room are currently unfilled, Racette said.

Just a year ago, officials had been feeling optimistic because their ER was fully staffed with local physicians and was not relying on locums. 

Now, he said, it's in a similar situation to the one that led to an emergency room closure in Red Lake last month. 

Officials at Red Lake's Margaret Cochenour Memorial Hospital closed the hospital's emergency room from March 26 to March 27 due to a lack of available physicians – after exhausting all other options. 

The chair of the Northwest Region Chief of Staff Council told CBC most small hospitals in the region will face a similar fate in the coming six months. 

The Lake of the Woods hospital joined the chiefs of staff and Northern Ontario School of Medicine University in preparing a brief about the issue for politicians last week, which includes several possible short-term solutions.

One of those solutions involves funding travel and accommodation for medical residents –  doctors who have completed their MD studies and are now doing post-graduate training in their field of practice – to do elective rotations in the north.

'A great idea'

Another involves devising a program under which locums – physicians who work in communities temporarily – bring a resident from their affiliated medical school.  

"I actually think that's a great idea," said Carl White Ulysse, the president of the Professional Association of Residents of Ontario (PARO). 

"It might help solve the acute need because you have a fully licensed doctor who's coming with someone who can support that person and provide additional service under supervision. Plus it provides … the exposure for the resident to rural practice so it might in the long run help with recruitment of people." 

When it comes to obtaining funding for residents' travel and accommodation in the north, White Ulysse said PARO's current service agreement with the province expires in 2023 so there won't be an opportunity for them to negotiate for provincial funding for such an initiative until then – though it's open to institutions such as medical schools to obtain their own funding for such a program.

Asked if PARO would be open to making such a funding request when contract negotiations come up, White Ulysse said yes.

Relying on agencies and health partners for nurses

"I think that there's certainly residents who may be very excited for the learning opportunities that can be available in a centre like that, and we all know that can be a great recruitment tool for getting staff out there once they've done their training," he said.

He cautioned, however, that residents can only practice with supervision from another physician, which may limit their immediate utility in highly understaffed hospitals.  

The doctors and officials who prepared the brief on the ER physician shortage last week have promised a follow-up brief on the larger issue of health human resources, Racette said. 

Meanwhile, the provincial legislature on Tuesday passed a motion by Thunder Bay-Atikokan MPP Judith Monteith-Farrell calling on the government to immediately develop and implement a strategy to address the physician shortage in northwestern Ontario – including a plan to recruit new doctors to the area and retain those already here. 

When it comes to addressing the nursing shortage, the Kenora hospital has been using agencies to fill nursing shifts and has accessed help through its All Nations Health partners, Racette said.  

It is also looking at bringing in more support staff, such as personal support workers, to ease the burden on nurses.