Better pay and added incentives to work in rural areas won't prevent a huge looming nursing shortage, nurses said Monday.
Lana Penner, a nurse at Health Sciences Centre, said staff are relieved a strike was averted this weekend, but worry a wage hike isn't enough to address the underlying problem.
Juanita Smith, front, a Registered Nurse at Victoria General Hospital, with RN Karen Sadler from St Boniface General Hospital.
Penner said nurses have already reverted to signing up for additional shifts -- the very thing they complained was leading to chronic burnout, stress and frustration that they can't provide safe patient care.
With more than 3,000 of Manitoba's 11,000 nurses eligible to retire in the next three years, the nursing shortage is expected to peak around 2011.
"Absolutely, we're worried that some of the issues are still there," Penner said. "We really haven't faced the worst shortage yet -- that's (still) coming."
The Manitoba Nurses Union narrowly averted a strike vote by reaching a tentative agreement with the province at midnight Saturday. Nurses agreed to a 10-per-cent wage hike over the next two years, along with an added pay boost this fall after Saskatchewan nurses negotiate their raise.
Nurses will vote on whether to ratify the agreement March 27.
Maureen Hancharyk, president of the Manitoba Nurses Union, said the deal will likely sway a few nurses who are eligible to retire to keep working, and persuade more new graduates to stay in Manitoba.
However, she said the shortage is expected to get worse and the region will continue to be forced to cancel elective surgeries and close beds until there are enough staff.
"This isn't a magic bullet, it's not going to fix the nursing shortage," Hancharyk said. "Hospitals and long-term care and the community will still rely on nurses picking up extra shifts and doing overtime."
After a brief turnaround, the number of vacant nursing positions started to creep up two years ago.
The number of Winnipeg jobs available for registered nurses reached 1,284 in 2002, dwindled to 639 in 2004, and shot back up in 2006.
Today, the number of vacant jobs in Winnipeg is hovering around 860 -- about 250 more than health officials would like.
That has left nurses like Karen Sadler worried they aren't able to deliver proper care.
"It is all about caring safely about the patients and we can't care safely about the patient if we don't have nurses in the job to do it," Sadler said.
Nurse Juanita Smith said she feels forced or pressured to take extra shifts at Victoria General Hospital.
If the hospital can't fill vacant shifts with casual or part-time workers, Smith is mandated to work overtime. Sometimes she ends up working more than 16 hours a day. On a typical day, Smith tells her family "I'll see you when I see you," since she's never certain when she'll be home.
"The overtime is killing us," she said. On a recent weekend, "I was called four times to do overtime on Saturday and Sunday. That was my weekend off, and I'm full-time."
While the number of nursing graduates has more than doubled since 1999, Donna McKenzie, a nurse in Portage District General Hospital, said that's still not enough to fill the void.
McKenzie said the health-care system has changed -- patients are older, sicker and require more time because of their complex care needs.
"Twenty-five years ago, the patients on the ward now would have been in the intensive care unit," McKenzie said. "That's how care has evolved."
Dauna Crooks, dean of nursing at the University of Manitoba, doubts the nurses' new contract will have any long-term effect on vacancy rates, since nursing schools are still not graduating enough people to keep up with the wave of retirements.
The school prepares new graduates for the pace of work. Crooks said between 300 and 350 students will learn how to say no to extra shifts before they graduate this year.
She said new graduates are looking for a balanced life -- something that's often impossible working double shifts and constant overtime.
jen.skerritt@freepress.mb.ca
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