Hospital relies on expensive temporary nursing staff to keep emergency department open
Hiring continues but staff shortage remains
Campbellford Memorial Hospital relies on expensive temporary nurses to keep its emergency department open and operating, President and CEO Jeff Hohenkerk says.
Last month, Hohenkerk said on Robert Washburn’s podcast Consider This Northumberland that two years ago, before he joined the hospital, it was forced to close the emergency department because of staff shortages. Since then, like many hospitals across the country, it has turned to nurses from staffing agencies that charge up to double the normal wage rate which at Campbellford Memorial tops out at $56 for a nurse with eight years experience.
Hohenkerk said the agency nurses are paid as much as he is as CEO noting “we can’t afford to keep using agency nurses.” For context, in 2022 he earned $214,000 when he was Vice President and Chief Transformation Officer, at Quinte Healthcare Corporation. His compensation for 2023 will be included in the next provincial sunshine list when it is released.
Peter Mitchell, the hospital’s communications manager, said this week that the number of agency nurses fluctuates day to day depending on factors such as staff illness and patient volumes.
“Costs to the hospital typically range from 1.5 to 2 times more than those of non-agency employees,” Mitchell says. “Efforts to recruit more staff have been successful as of late, however, still remain a challenge given the province-wide shortage of health care workers.”
Last month, The Globe and Mail published an investigation into the growth of agency nursing companies during COVID-19 as hospitals across Canada struggled to keep staff on the job.
Washburn’s interview with Hohenkerk is part of a regular show he does on Northumberland 89.7 FM and then posts online. Like me, he’s a lone aging journalist trying to fill gaps in local journalism following the collapse of print media and local TV and radio news. He’s done some interesting interviews on the daycare situation in the county that I intend to follow up on soon.
In his interview, Hohenkerk discussed efforts by rural municipalities to push the province for more financial assistance for healthcare. “Your postal code is more important than your genetic code in determining your healthcare,” he said. “The further north of Highway 401 you go the less access you have to care.”
Last August, an independent report examined working conditions and staffing issues at Campbellford Memorial. Hohenkerk said efforts to deal with those problems are paying off and staff turnover has dropped from an eye-popping 20 per cent per year to five per cent now.
“Over the past twelve months, our organization has been committed to significantly enhancing our retention strategies,” Mitchell said. “This has included implementing various initiatives such as conducting exit, entrance, and stay interviews to gain insights into why individuals choose to leave, join, or remain at CMH.
“Additionally, we have recently conducted an employee engagement survey and established a retention committee to further understand the factors contributing to employee retention within our organization.”
The independent assessment noted that registered nurses “working alongside agency staff are discouraged and demoralized when their organization would rather utilize more expensive but less effective resources. Their employer has failed to stabilize their own staffing model by providing appropriate support and resources that are in the best interest of patients and staff.”
Some staff nurses had complained that agency nurses weren’t receiving enough training on the hospital’s policies and procedures.
This is going to be a tough financial year for the hospital. Hohenkerk said costs are going to be $30 million to $32 million, while the budget had been about $25 million.
“Like most hospitals this year, various financial pressures, including agency costs, the repeal of bill 124, inflation, as well as increased patient capacity and acuity levels, have led to larger than projected costs,” Mitchell said.
Bill 124 was the Ford government’s illegal attempt to block wage increases. After a lengthy court fight, it has been overturned and now hospitals and government agencies are being forced to negotiate retroactive increases and figure out how to pay for them.