Amidst staffing shortages, how does the province get more nurses to the front lines?
CBC
Athena Liu, a fourth-year nursing student at the University of Calgary, spends a lot of time watching what happens in the city's hospitals.
She's focusing on internal medicine and respirology, working with a clinical group at Rockyview General Hospital.
She says her peers, instructors and the nursing staff work incredibly hard, but she does see them struggling.
"I think there is burnout, for sure. Like nurses are just trying their best to give, you know, the best care they can. But it's hard when you have two, three nurses, four or five nurses who call in sick," she said.
"Now we have a much higher patient load than what we're used to.… It is very hard."
Earlier this week, five health-care unions representing health-care workers from across Alberta gathered to warn of a continuing staffing crisis.
Burnout among nurses and other front-line staff has been widely reported across the province and the country, and nursing professionals say there's no quick fix.
"The reality is we went into COVID with deficits and those just continued to climb," Heather Smith, president of United Nurses of Alberta, said this week.
As of Friday, more than 130 registered nursing positions — for jobs within 50 kilometres of Calgary — were posted on the Alberta Health Services careers website, with even more posted for licensed practical nurses, registered psychiatric nurses and nurse practitioners.
In a statement, an AHS spokesperson said they have 1,800 more registered nurses working today than in 2019. They did not say if AHS is short-staffed and by how many nurses.
"Vacancy filling and recruitment is always a priority for AHS and takes place all year, in real-time," the statement said.
Students like Liu say they are seeing nursing shortages as they continue their schooling. She says on one hand, she knows she'll have her pick of jobs when she graduates next year.
But she's not sure what will await her.
"There's a reason why nurses have been quitting and why there has been a turnover," she said. "There's definitely some apprehension going in."
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