London, Ont., hospitals facing chronic nursing shortage as pandemic fourth wave nears

Mirroring much of the country, the London Health Sciences Centre is dealing with a chronic nursing shortage that's left those still working tired, stressed, and on the brink of burnout, advocates say. 

Since the pandemic hit London in March 2020, 31 nurses in acute and critical care areas of the hospital have resigned and 18 have retired, officials say. That's double the resignations in the 18 months preceding the pandemic, and six more retirements during that time period. While recruiting is happening, many of those who have left are senior nurses who took with them years of knowledge and whose expertise will be difficult to quickly replace. 

"Nurses are just mentally and physically fatigued but they feel they have to provide the care because we owe it to our patients," said James Gibbons, a registered nurse who most recently worked in the intensive care unit at the University Hospital site. 

He worked the first three waves of the pandemic in the ICU, but has recently moved to the union office as the bargaining unit president for the Ontario Nurses Association. 

"I've spoken to a lot of those nurses who have left and they just can't go through another wave and they're leaving sooner than anticipated because mentally and physically, they just can't do it."

 Although the hospital provides wellness programs, many nurses are so tired and have so little free time, they're not using them, Gibbons said. 

"I think a lot of nurses right now are suffering in silence and it's challenging, because there's not a lot of services out there for when a nurse has had a terrible shift, where one of our patients may have passed away," Gibbons said.