Health P.E.I. focused on hiring hundreds of new staff, AGM hears

Health P.E.I. CEO Melanie Fraser says her department still needs to recruit hundreds of health care workers as the current system is too vulnerable to the loss of a single person, whether that's because of a job vacancy or simple sick day.

Fraser told those gathered at Health P.E.I.'s annual general meeting on Monday night that staff recruitment and retention is the number one priority. 

"We want to have a system where staff can take holidays, there's opportunities for staff to do appropriate training, that they're working as part of a full team," said Fraser.

"That creates the environment that is more easy to recruit, too. It's more easy to retain staff."

Key to that, she said, is building teams that can cover for one another when there is an absence, whether for a holiday or maternity leave or to take advantage of a training opportunity. On the primary care level, patient medical homes — which are teams of health-care professionals led by doctors and nurse practitioners — will be at the centre of that.

The province is planning about another 30 patient medical homes, which Fraser said will require recruiting another 56 doctors and NPs, as well as hundreds of other health-care workers like LPNs, RNs, medical office assistants, social workers and others.

Reopening the intensive care unit at the Prince County Hospital is another priority, Fraser told the meeting.

The hospital lost its intensive care unit in 2023 because there weren't enough medical specialists to staff an ICU there, leaving the PCH with a progressive care unit instead.

Fraser said a sixth internal medicine specialist has been hired, and the hospital has also hired the respiratory specialists it needs in order to reopen the ICU. 

"The concern remains critical care nurses and being able to hire sufficient critical care nurses," she said.

Health P.E.I. is looking to both hire and train from within to fill those vacancies.

Recruitment challenges are reflected in the budget. Health P.E.I. recorded an $18 million surplus, which Fraser noted is only two per cent of the overall budget and so close to the target, but acknowledged unfilled vacancies were part of what generated that surplus.

Nurse practitioner Darci Leggatt, who attended the meeting, took the opportunity to discuss the pay for her profession in the province.

Leggatt, who has been working on P.E.I. for five years, noted NPs are playing a vital role in primary care.