Health Minister says the province has led the country in registering nurses and has invested millions of dollars to hire more surgical nurses and long\u002Dterm care aides.
“Normally, an ICU nurse has one patient, a critical patient who is intubated. But now, having two to three critical-care patients per nurse is what is normal,” said Aman Grewal, president of the B.C. Nurses’ Union. “These nurses are burnt out. They’re morally distressed, and they’re leaving the profession.”
B.C. Health Minister Adrian Dix said Monday the province has led the country in registering nurses and has invested millions of dollars to hire more surgical nurses and long-term care aides since the pandemic began, but could offer no examples of investments in training, recruiting and retaining specialized ICU nurses.
“Experienced ICU nurses are leaving, and so now we are filling these ICUs with inexperienced nurses,” Hilsmann said. “So we have all of these young nurses without mentors, without older nurses to guide them, and that’s quite concerning because experience is crucial to providing high-quality care.”Article content
Hilsmann predicts the government will not be able to implement its training promise without recruiting more educators and ensuring that nursing students get clinical placements. It takes an extra six months to a year to train an ICU nurse after they have earned their nursing degree, Hilsmann added.