Senior leadership at the Lake of the Woods District Hospital said they are facing one of its worst staff shortages since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, and in the last 20 to 30 years.
Hospital CEO, Ray Racette outlined the shortage of staff members at a media briefing on New Year's Eve.
“The lowest staff that we have has been really presenting a big challenge for us as a hospital, and I think our staff has worked very hard to maintain our services,” said Racette.
Racette noted the only service that has been impacted by the shortage of staff members has been the closure of nine hospital beds.
Surprisingly, the COVID-19 pandemic isn’t the main root of why staff members are departing the hospital, but it has added pressure to employees.
“There is a lot of tired people cause of COVID, we’re almost into our two-year period now, that’s a long journey to run with the pandemic, so unprecedented pressure on staffing for that length of time will result in a turnover.”
“We did have a lot of people move into other settings in Kenora, or they decided to go back home in order to be closer to where they grew up, and we also had lots of maternity leaves that played out in our younger workforce.”
The CEO did say the hospital started to lose staffing going into the summer months and then continued all the way through.
On November 11, 2021, the hospital approved implementing a mandatory vaccine policy that applied to all hospital staff, professional staff, volunteers, visitors, learners, contractors, and service providers.
Racette doesn’t believe that the vaccine policy has impacted the staff shortage at the least.
“We’re still hoping that many of people that are not yet vaccinated choose to do that, and hopefully we don’t have much job loss associated with that new policy being applied,” concluded Racette.
By January 31, hospital staff, professional staff, volunteers, learners, contractors, and service providers will also be required to provide proof of COVID-19 vaccination.