Health-care workers with COVID-19 brought in to support 'miserable' summer, says Health P.E.I. CEO

The CEO of Health P.E.I. says chronic staffing shortages and a rise in COVID-19 cases in the province, have made the first few weeks of the summer "extremely difficult" for health-care workers.

About 135 Health P.E.I. staff were off last week with COVID-19. Dr. Michael Gardam said that is a lot for the province's system, which was already feeling the strain.

"We're in the peak of summer holiday season and of course, we have many more people on the Island than we do during the winter, so we have more people potentially who can get infected and who need to access health care," he said.

"It's been a pretty miserable summer."

Gardam said in rare circumstances — fewer than 10 times — COVID-19-positive health-care staff have been brought in to work in order to keep the system running and avoid closures.

He said in those situations, the workers must be past their fifth day of isolation and must feel and sound well enough to work.

"And, of course, they have to be absolutely essential," he said. "We're not just bringing people back for the fun of it."

Gardam used the example of a trauma-trained nurse returning to work if they were symptom-free and there were no other trauma-trained nurses available that day.

"Most of the health-care workers that I've spoken with who have had COVID have not been well enough to work," he said.

Gardam, whose background is in infectious disease prevention and control, said the risk of these health-care workers spreading COVID-19 is overwhelmingly unlikely.

"The infection control protocols we use have shown over the last two and a half years that despite all the COVID out there, we are very good at actually controlling spread in health care. We're not perfect, but we're very good at it," he said, adding that keeping services running is the most important thing.

Emergency rooms across the country have been facing potential closures this summer as health-care systems continue to battle the years-long pandemic crisis.

Over the past few months, Health P.E.I. has announced dozens of overnight closures of Alberton's Western Hospital emergency room, citing staffing shortages.

"We're trying to be very, very intelligent about if we do have to close the service, it's one that's going to have the least impact for the least number of people just to try to keep the rest of the system running."