Kirsten Larsen
Northern News Services

NNSL (Jan 29/99) - A nation-wide shortage of nurses is spreading the patient-care staff especially thin in the North and Stanton Regional Hospital is not immune to the situation.

Being a regional hospital, and the largest, in the NWT, it's fairly safe to say that Stanton can be used as a gauge by which one can measure the effect the nursing shortage is having on the North. Although Stanton is not experiencing the critical situation which some other Northern hospitals and health-care facilities may be going through, it has had its share of shortage.

Carol Anderson, director of patient care at Stanton Regional Hospital, said the situation is not at a critical point but it is causing strain.

"We definitely do have a huge turnover this year," said Anderson. "It's about a 20 per cent turnover. So far we have been able to manage but there are periods where we have been very concerned about having enough staff to be able to manage. It's a constant concern, but it's not as critical as (other hospitals)."

Between Jan. 1 and Nov. 6, 1998, Stanton lost 44 employees, 13 of which were registered nurses, as well as three lab assistants, two pharmacists and one physiotherapist.

"The ones that completed exit forms, almost half of them said they left because of relocation because of their spouse (acquiring a job elsewhere)," said Anderson. "Some left for jobs in the south and opportunities for advancement and family reasons, one retired and others accepted jobs in the North."

Nurses in the North have had a decrease in benefits such as holiday pay and have been without a union contract for approximately a year, which, the Canadian Nurses Association stated, is attributing to part of the reason the North is having problems retaining nurses.

Onalee Randell, president of the association, expressed concern that nurses are finding it difficult during the staff shortage to access education and re-certification programs because of the time and travel involved and the lack of programs in the North.