Island Health says challenges with the pandemic and low nursing staff have contributed to temporary emergency department closures on Vancouver Island.
Central and North Island clinical operations vice president James Hanson says staffing has always been a challenge in remote areas. He says this is because of a loss in available staff for the areas.
“Rural/remote has always been a challenge for us to recruit and retain staff,” said Hanson. “We used to rely quite heavily on agency nursing, so private nursing.
“Now systems, regional systems, provincial systems, national systems are relying on agency nursing, not just rural/remote but pretty much everywhere throughout.”
He adds that combined with the pandemic, housing has become an issue for nurses to stay.
