Vernon Jubilee Hospital will be impacted by walk-in clinic closure, says nurses union

Photo: Jon Manchester

Vernon nurses, alongside colleagues across the province, say they're feeling tremendous guilt amid a “severe” health care staff shortage.

BC Nurses' Union president Adriane Gear says the closure of Vernon’s last walk-in clinic will undoubtedly have an impact on Vernon Jubilee Hospital.

She says nurses are concerned about patient care while simultaneously feeling the burden of an overwhelmed and understaffed system.

“It’s not just this closure of a walk-in clinic,” says Gear. “Even if this clinic wasn’t closing, the workload of nurses is immense right now.”

Gear says nurses aren't receiving enough support, echoing comments by Dr. Chris Cunningham about why the clinic is closing.

In a hospital setting, “maybe there’s supposed to be eight nurses on a shift and there's only four, and you actually have more patients than you have funded beds,” says Gear.

“It's not just working without enough resources, nurses are continually asked to do more – and that has had a huge toll on the workforce.”

A study from the nurses union in 2021 found 35 per cent of nurses were looking to leave the industry within two years. Gear says if the union were to do the same study today, she suspects that number would be higher.

Nursing job vacancies have increased over the past couple of months, and there’s currently 5,825 vacancies in the province.

“We know that the attrition rate is accelerating,” said Gear.

“Nurses that are nearing retirement age, maybe if circumstances were better, if workloads were more manageable, if nurses were able to provide the care that patients required, those nurses would work another two to five years, but they're saying ‘Nope, can't do it,’ and they're leaving.”

New grads entering the nursing field are also quickly realizing the workload isn’t manageable. Gear says new nurses are carrying a “tremendous burden” of guilt, feeling they’re not providing the care patients need and worrying over their licence.

Mid-career nurses are leaving to other positions, many resigning full-time jobs to work part time or casual, because they’re consistently working short-staffed.

They're left with no choice but to work excessive amounts of overtime "because there's nobody coming in."

But, Gear has “guarded optimism” about an agreement to implement minimum nurse to patient ratios in B.C. She says jurisdictions that have implemented the ratio are seeing nurses return.

“We're hopeful that nurses will stop leaving the public system for agency nursing positions,” said Gear, explaining that is further destabilizing the workforce.

“Nurses are taking these lucrative privatized nursing positions, but it's the same nurses, there's only so many nurses in the system. They're leaving … and it's costing the taxpayer so much more to have these nurses come back and work as private agency nurses.”

According to the union, BC spent $146 million on agency nurses between 2019 and 2023. It says this is a significant jump from the $8.7 million spent between 2018 and 2019.

"Nurses are a finite resource and it takes four years to domestically train a registered nurse. It takes two years to domestically train a licensed practical nurse. Stop bleeding them, you know, treat people better."