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home / 世界杯决赛2022

covid-19: overworked b.c. nurses ‘emotionally traumatized’ by third wave

head of b.c. nurses union says an estimated 60 per cent of nurses in the province showing ‘serious emotional distress leading up to early signs of ptsd’

by kevin griffin

apr 21 2021
read time 4 minute read
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more than a year into dealing with the covid-19 pandemic,

nurses in b.c. are already physically and emotionally exhausted as they face the third wave, says the president of the b.c. nurses union .

christine sorensen said she has been told that nurses are now working as many as six 12- to 14-hour shifts a week.
what she called an “untenable workload” is contributing to an estimated 60 per cent of nurses showing signs of “serious emotional distress leading up to early signs of ptsd.
“that was last june. it’s only gotten worse. every nurse tells me they’re exhausted,” sorensen said tuesday.
“many of these nurses are emotionally traumatized. they have seen, particularly in long-term care, more people die in a short period of time than they have ever seen in their career.”
in acute care in hospitals, she said, nurses are seeing many “incredibly ill” people.
“they have seen their colleagues break down and cry often during a shift,” sorensen said.
“many report they’re crying before and after. they’re looking for ways to leave the profession or looking to find safer workplaces in the health-care system.”
sorensen was responding to b.c. health minister adrian dix’s comments last thursday that the health care system has enough beds, ventilators and equipment to deal with the third wave of covid-19.
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but a potential surge of patients into extra hospital beds “puts significant additional pressure on staff.”
sorensen said there aren’t enough nurses to meet the needs of patients.
“if there is not enough qualified professional health-care staff, it doesn’t matter how many physical beds we have or how many surge beds or how many hallway beds,” she said.
“patient care will suffer or be denied. there are not enough health-care staff. there are not enough nurses.”
on monday, premier john horgan singled out “our nurses, our care aides, our doctors, who have not paused to party on the beach but have focused all of their energies on keeping us all safe” during the past 14 months.
“i lift my hands to them in an enormous amount of gratitude on behalf of all british columbians for the extraordinary sacrifices they continue to make, putting themselves on the line, to the verge of exhaustion, keeping their fellow british columbians well during a global pandemic,” he said.

according to worksafe bc , the highest number of covid-19 registered claims made up to april 16 have been in health care and social services with 2,019 (1,026 in acute care and 993 in long-term care). the next highest industry with covid-19 workplace claims is education at 301.

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sorensen said nurses represent the biggest group of health-care workers who have caught sars-cov-2 in the workplace.
“we need to acknowledge the high risk of aerosolized spread of covid, which has been acknowledged worldwide in other countries — including the public health agency of canada — and provide unfettered access to ppe they need, including n95 masks,” she said.
the pandemic has exacerbated people’s frustration and anger in general, sorensen said, and led to nurses being “regularly subject to verbal abuse by patients — sometimes even internally by their own colleagues because of frustration related to delay of care or services.”
“they have done a remarkable job over the last year and have not been given enough credit,” sorensen said.
“they feel incredibly undervalued by the employer and government.”
the bcnu represents more than 48,000 nurses in hospitals, long-term care facilities and the community.

in a virtual news conference earlier tuesday that sorensen was not part of, dr. victoria lee, president and ceo of fraser health , said that she’s most concerned about staffing capacity in critical care.

“we have identified over 200 people we have trained over the last year,” she said. “we have pulled critical care nursing that we have available in additional areas into current services. we have redeployed some people as well.”

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b.c. is divided into five publicly funded health regions. fraser health authority delivers health services to about 1.8 million people from burnaby east to hope.
dr. elizabeth brodkin, chief medical officer of fraser health, said she understands that everyone is “entirely fed up with this pandemic” and the restrictions on socializing.
but while she said while vaccines are going to be “our ticket out of this,” everyone still has to “buckle down and continue to follow” the public health orders of dr. bonnie henry, the provincial health officer.
“dr. henry is talking about the end of the may long weekend as a turning point,” dr. brodkin said at the virtual news conference.
“i am very hopeful that we will get there, and we just need to hold on for a few more weeks.”
kevingriffin@postmedia.com
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