“We are suffering from a very significant shortage of primary care practitioners whether they be nurse-led outreach clinics or physicians across all of our areas.”
Daub added some workers are just too tired and exhausted to continue.
“So we are experiencing health unit resource issues right across the hospitals. It is not not unique to us. It’s happening in Kingston, Ottawa. We are having to to dig deep in how to support our teams. Rally around these teams. If there’s anything that keeps me up at night it’s the experience of our frontline nurses, physicians, lab techs, hospitality workers, you name it and the experiences they are having and we continue to look for new and innovative ways to support them.”
“We’re seeing people who, because of the pandemic, have delayed care so they are quite honestly sicker when they come to the hospital and they need to stay at the hospital longer.”
Daub continued, “We have two priorities this year. The one is to focus on the improvements of today. How can we make sure that we are getting to the surgical backlogs. Making sure Quinte Health Care remains a place that people feel welcome to come to, are not afraid to come to in terms of residents and citizens, and that we support our staff.”
“At the same time, we’re thinking about our future because if you don’t think about your future you could very possibly be tethered to the challenges of today forever.”
The Quinte Health Care president pointed to the partnership with the counties of Hastings and Prince Edward.
“And you only need to look a couple of communities over. I have a colleague who is responsible for leading the Cornwall hospital and they are absolutely overwhelmed with over 20 people in the COVID intensive care unit. They had to cancel surgery.”
“Not only have you kept our community safe, but you (the counties) have also enabled the hospitals to continue to run and work through our surgical backlog, and all the things that have been shifted and impacted by the pandemic.”
