Pandemic 'Heroes' Pay the Price as Hospitals Cut Registered Nurses to Balance Budgets
OSHAWA, ON, Sept. 11, 2020 /CNW/ - Yet another Ontario hospital has issued lay-off notices to front-line registered nurses (RNs) – the very nurses hailed as heroes during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Lakeridge Health has informed the Ontario Nurses' Association (ONA) that it is cutting eight full-time and six part-time RNs from several of its units as it seeks to balance its budget. ONA President Vicki McKenna, RN, has expressed anger that employers are undertaking a round of RN cuts during a pandemic that is far from over.
"News of still more RN layoffs is incredibly disappointing and disheartening," says McKenna. "This is the second time in the space of a week that a large Greater Toronto Area hospital is opting to put money over care. Lakeridge Health is cutting RNs who provide high quality care to patients in the acute medicine unit, surgical program and most alarmingly, the infectious disease clinic. It's truly outrageous that this is the route that management is taking to balance the budget and the residents of Durham Region who rely on Lakeridge for their health-care needs should be very alarmed."
McKenna says that Ontario has yet to take the lessons of research on RN staffing levels to heart. Multiple studies have shown that cutting RN care leads to patients suffering a seven-per-cent increase in morbidity (complications) and mortality (death).
"I am dumbfounded that in the midst of a pandemic, when Ontarians are out thanking front-line nurses for their incredible dedication, courage and skills, that Toronto Rehab and now, Lakeridge Health is cutting the very people who make a difference to their patients' health outcomes and provide such good value. ONA is calling on this government to stop the RN cuts now and urging Ontarians to do the same. This is too important to everyone to stay silent."
/CNW/ - Yet another Ontario hospital has issued lay-off notices to front-line registered nurses (RNs) – the very nurses hailed as heroes during the COVID-19...
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Lets acknowledge upfront this is a stupid decision.
Now lets discuss why its happening.
1) Ontario hospitals are not allowed to run deficits.
Unto itself that is understandable and wise.............its also routinely overlooked by the MoH depending on the year..............
But.....it does mean that hospitals have an affirmative obligation to balance their budgets, absent changes in law/regulation to the contrary.
Also important to note that isn't new..............its been a rule for a very long time.
That doesn't let the current gov't off the hook for not addressing either the regulation/law or funding.
But the problem didn't start with them..............it just hasn't been addressed by them.
2) Ontario produces a prodigious number of RNs, and exceptionally qualified ones at that.
Our grads are in high demand in the US, to the point that U.S. border states depend on them to make up a statistically significant factor of hospital staff.
3) Yet, we have shifted away from using full RNs in favour of RPNs (registered practical nurse).
For the simple reason the latter is cheaper.
This has been an amusing (in a certain way) if dubious trend.
Ontario has been among the leaders in utilizing nurse practitioners and expanded practice pharmacists.
But we've done so in order to deliver medicine more cheaply than through doctors.
This creates a logical follow through all the way down the food chain.
4) Each time a level of professional can do more................they cost more, either in total services rendered (fee for service) or in higher salary because they are qualified to do more things.
In other words a portion of the savings of delegating tasks to a lesser-paid tier of the medical profession (as with many others) is that the lower paid tier becomes higher paid as a result of said delegation.
In turn the desire forms to lower that cost by delegating something(s) they do to a lower-still paid tier and so on.
To some degree, this idea is well intentioned, and can serve 'the system' well.
But at another level its an endless exercise in cost-cutting that under values wider experience and knowledge.
That attitude permeates this sort of decision.........in addition to the regulations and laws that mandate something of this ilk.