A new peer-reviewed study warns Ontario’s hospital workers are in turmoil as they deal with an intensifying staffing crisis that is harming their well-being and compromising patient care.
Research for the study ‘Running on Empty’ is based on extensive interviews with 26 hospital workers including nurses, personal support workers, housekeepers and clerical staff.
“They expressed a profound sense of dissatisfaction, despair, sorrow, anger, and frustration about their working conditions and the quality of patient care,” says Dr. Margaret Keith, co-author. “There was an overarching sense of being unsupported, overworked, and disrespected, which is being driven by chronic underfunding and understaffing.”
She adds Ontario ranks at or near the bottom of the country in key healthcare funding measures and has the lowest per-person hospital spending of any province, with 18 per cent less hospital staff compared to the rest of Canada.
The study says worsening working conditions and surging patient volumes without a sufficient increase in staffing is leading to workers taking care of more patients and working overtime, causing exhaustion and burnout.
They also say quality of care is being impacted.
Michael Hurley, co-author and president of CUPE’s Ontario Council of Hospital Unions (OCHU-CUPE) says the government needs to act now.
“We have seen some tinkering from the province, but nothing commensurate with the severity of the crisis,” he says. “We had an astounding 870 emergency room closures last year, and we cannot allow that to become acceptable.”
Hurley says the impact of staffing shortages is felt every day by hospital patients and their families, and these problems will only get worse if they remain unaddressed.
“This situation doesn’t get better without adding staff and that would mean adding resources,” he says. “We also need to add hospital beds. We have the fewest of those as well and that’s why there’s such a backlog and a wait for people to get in. That’s why there’s hallway medicine.”
