Terry Halifax
Northern News Services

NNSL (Mar 08/99) - The community of Rae-Edzo is losing nurses and hopes to find out why, through a radio call-in show hosted by elders and community health workers.

Public relations spokesperson for the Dogrib Community Services Board, Vicki Swan, says the radio show will address the nursing shortage and seek answers from callers.

"The program is to talk about why nurses aren't staying in the community and to try and find solutions within the community," she said.

One of the principle reasons nurses aren't staying is the huge number of non-emergency calls that were being handled by the on-call nurses, Swan said.

"The nurses were getting so many phone calls while on-call that weren't emergencies," Swan said. "For example, one person told me they'd received 48 calls and only one was an emergency."

Nurses were being bombarded with all types of calls, including requests for Tylenol. And some calls were simply cranks, Swan said.

"Sometimes they get verbally abused, too," she said. "The whole idea of the radio show is to make people aware of what is a real emergency."

Public input will go a long way to solving problems at the nursing station, says Nell Vrolik, director of Health and Social Services in Rae-Edzo.

"The radio show is meant to make the community aware of issues that happen within communities that affect the retention of staff -- and not only nurses, but teachers, social workers and all professionals," Vrolik said. "We just happen to be in a nursing crunch now, but it's meant to address the whole professional aspect."

The program will be paneled by the community health representative, the chairperson from the Dogrib Community Services and two elders from the community, Vrolik said.

The issue with the crank phone calls is a serious one, she added.

"It should be emergencies only after hours," Vrolik said. "People were calling up at three in the morning, asking for phone numbers."

What may be a practical joke to the callers can actually endanger lives, Vrolik said.

"They must be made aware to the seriousness of this," she said. "These calls could be jeopardizing people's lives."

The shortage of nurses is not unique to the North, Vrolik explained. Shortages are being reported everywhere.

"It's a problem throughout the world," she said. "It's a shortage that has been predicted for a number of years."

"People just aren't going into the profession of nursing any more," she said. "This is a direct result of the massive reforms that have been happening in health care, where nursing has been really deprofessionalised."

The bad news is the shortage is far from over, Vrolik said. "The real crunch won't be coming until the year 2005," she warned. "So, we ain't seen nothing yet."