Iqaluit (Feb 06/06) - Scores from Baffin Regional Hospital's recent failed accreditation are out, and they paint a gloomy picture of overworked employees without direction.

"A major (challenge) for this organization is the recruitment and retention of qualified staff," was the conclusion of the report.

"The organization needs to clarify roles and responsibilities vis a vis the government departments," was another recommendation.

It also highlighted staff safety, quality monitoring, formalized ethics processes, updated infection control processes, and standardized pain management processes as areas the hospital needs to work on.

The "Closer to Home" strategy received praise in the report, as did the staff. "Teams and staff throughout the organization were very forthcoming about the workings of their organization," was the conclusion.

The exam was broken down in to four large sections, each with multiple sub-sections.

It is in those sub-sections where the clearest picture of how and where the hospital failed can be seen.

There are 21 sub-categories and the hospital received a score of one - the lowest possible score - in seven of them, including efficiency, communication and continuity.

The section about repeated and key recommendations also sheds light on how long these problems have been around.

Key recommendations are high urgency while repeated recommendations were identified in the last accreditation, three years ago.

There were six categories that were considered both key and repeated. They are availability, continuity, appropriateness, effectiveness, confidentiality and learning environment.

The section of the report released to Nunavut News/North includes the basic scores and overall recommendation. It did not include the actual comments of the individual accreditors.

Baffin Regional's chief of staff - Dr Mark Lachmann - was not too distraught over the news of the failed accreditation. Now when he asks for more funding, he can count on an attentive audience.

"I think this allows the concerns to be heard by the health minister and by the financial management board. The loss of accreditation is secondary to the additional resources," said Lachmann.

"When Nunavut was formed, the system was underfunded. We have gone through these reviews and now we have a detailed plan ready. To be truthful that (the detailed plan) is very lucky for the health minister," said Lachmann.

The health minister, Leonna Aglukkaq, announced $2.3 million in new money after the announcement of the failed accreditation was made.