WELLINGTON COUNTY – Healthcare workers in Ontario are running on empty and are on the brink of burnout, states a new report published in New Solutions: A Journal of Environmental and Occupational Health Policy.
The report is co-authored by Dr. Margaret Keith and Dr. James Brophy with American health researcher Dr. Craig Slatin.
“Health care workers are warning us about the future of our public system,” said Dr. Keith in a press release.
“They expressed a profound sense of dissatisfaction, despair, sorrow, anger, and frustration about their working conditions and the quality of patient care. There was an overarching sense of being unsupported, overworked, and disrespected, which is being driven by chronic underfunding and understaffing.”
The research was done in collaboration with the Ontario Council of Hospital Unions-Canadian Union of Public Employees (OCHU-CUPE), based on extensive interviews with 26 hospital workers including nurses, personal support workers, housekeepers and clerical staff.
The findings support a recent poll of 775 OCHU-CUPE members that indicate 72 per cent of hospital working in Ottawa have high stress levels, 54% dread going to work and nearly half say they have trouble sleeping.
“The sharp decline in their working conditions is harming their mental and physical well-being. But what is particularly jarring is the feeling of being abandoned by the government and often their own employers,” said Dr. Brophy.
“It’s like your house is on fire, and everyone can see it, but no one’s coming to help. It makes you lose faith in the system.”
More patients, less staff, emergency room closures, long waits for treatments, surgery and diagnostic tests, – “You’d think that the government would be acting on a war footing and taking bold steps to ramp up recruitment and retention,” said Michael Hurley, co-author and president of OCHU-CUPE.
“That they would legislate nurse-to-patient ratios to protect morale and give nurses confidence that they can provide quality care; that they would ensure wages keep up with inflation, rather than continue real cuts to income and that they would offer free tuition, pay while training and a massive expansion in nursing and allied training programs.”
Instead, he said, Ontario continues to “witness real dollar funding cuts that are strangling the health care system and causing staff to leave in despair, by the thousands.”
Perth-Wellington MPP Matthew Rae
Perth-Wellington MPP Matthew Rae said the province recognizes the problem and has invested $2 billion over three years into recruitment and retention efforts for healthcare personnel.
It is also working with the Ontario Medical Association to reduce some of the requirements for international doctors so they can practice medicine here sooner.
“The previous government had not invested in training,” Rae said, adding that while the pandemic has exacerbated the problem, many of the issues raised in the report pre-date the Conservative government.
“It will take time to train. Unfortunately, the previous Liberal government fired nurses and closed spots in medical schools,” he said.
In 2023, the province expanded the Learn and Stay grant program it offered to nurses to include paramedics and medical laboratory technologists.
Eligible students receive full, upfront funding for tuition, books and other direct educational costs. In return, they work in the region where they studied for a term of service after graduation.
Rae said 32,000 new nurses are now in the workforce and that an average of 30,000 should graduate each year thanks to the program.
“Hope is on the horizon.”
Rae said he meets often with health organizations in his riding, listing hospital CEOs, home care and community care representatives and those in long-term care among them.
He noted the Minto-Mapleton Family Health Team received $568,000 in February to hire two nurse practitioners and a receptionist at the Clifford location. Similar investments have been made in other communities across Ontario, he said.
Addressing primary care will help relieve some pressures on hospital emergency departments, he said, noting $540 million has been dedicated to expanding primary care across the province.
“The most expensive care is in hospitals. We’re looking to improve care in the community,” he said.
The government also agreed to fund the operating costs of an MRI at Palmerston and District Hospital, although the hospital foundation is currently fundraising to purchase the equipment.
“The announcement was well-received. This is just one expansion,” he added.
“We continue to make progress.”
