Alberta Health Services and the Hinton Healthcare Centre are letting the public know of temporary acute bed shortages in the facility.

Six of 23 acute care inpatient beds have been closed since March 15, according to the AHS website. The bed closures, which are anticipated to last until April 3, are due to a temporary nursing staff shortage, said Angie Mann, Director of Clinical Operations Area 1, NHS North Zone.

“This is a temporary measure to ensure safe and high-quality care for patients, and a quality work environment for staff. AHS continues to look for solutions to address staffing needs,” Mann said in a memo which was circulated by the Town of Hinton.

But the union representing Alberta nurses says that labour shortages in healthcare are part of a larger, systemic issue of the Alberta government’s own making. 

“Nurses aren’t feeling that Alberta Health Services and the Minister of Health respects the value of the contribution nurses are making,” said Heather Smith, president of the United Nurses of Alberta. “That’s created huge issues around retention, and it’s created huge staffing deficits across the province.”

Back in early 2020, nurses and the Alberta government were at the bargaining table, trying to come to terms on a new collective agreement. Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit and those negotiations were suspended. Two years later, the nurses and the government finally hammered out a deal, but the hard feelings lingered. And the affect of COVID was that many nurses abandoned the vocation.

“COVID did incredible damage in terms of people walking away from the profession,” Smith said. 

That shift was not exclusive to Alberta. Yet other jurisdictions across Canada are doing a better job at recruiting and retaining healthcare professionals, according to Dr. Luanne Metz, MLA for Calgary-Varsity and the Official Opposition Critic for Heath. Metz said a combination of increased university tuition fees in Alberta, lower wages than other provinces and a high workload—exasperated by what unions are calling a hiring freeze on contract (or agency) nurses—is contributing to the staff shortages experienced at the Hinton Healthcare centre and other facilities. 

“There’s so much anti-healthcare worker rhetoric from the system,” Metz said. “We need to be treating our healthcare workers with respect, but that’s not been the message they’re getting.”

AHS announced in February that a funding shortfall is pushing in a new staffing policy. Until at least the end of the first quarter of 2024, recruitment of management and non-union, non-clinical support positions has been paused. Any exceptions must be run through the AHS CEO. 

Metz said Alberta used to have the distinction of being the best-resourced province when it came to healthcare, but that recruiting advantage has since disappeared.

“What took that away was not the pandemic, but the attitude towards nurses and doctors,” she said. 

Besides compounding nurses’ already taxed schedules, the bed closures at the Hinton Healthcare Centre will have obvious implications for community members who might need to access services at the hospital, Smith said.

“It might result in people delaying care because thy know services have been disrupted. From a patient perspective, it’s certainly bad news all around,” Smith said.

For updates on the status of the acute care inpatient beds at the Hinton Healthcare Centre, check the AHS Facilities: Temporary Service Disruptions website.

Bob Covey // bob@thejasperlocal.com