Dear Staff, Professional Staff, Learners, Volunteers, Researchers, and Board members — greetings, boozhoo, and bonjour.
As you may have seen or heard, the provincial government has decided not to impose mandatory vaccinations on hospital workers. The Ontario Hospital Association made a strong case as to why this is needed to be mandated provincially. However, the government has instead directed hospitals to make decisions made on their own local and regional situations.
As a team, we are proud to report that we are at 95.8% of our staff fully vaccinated. However, as an academic and regional health sciences centre with considerably vulnerable and at-risk populations – together with a trending increase in COVID-19 cases provincially – we need to decide what to do on this front at a time when many of Ontario hospitals have already gone with mandatory vaccinations for staff. We are going to take a few days to review our situation at TBRHSC/TBRHRI and decide on what to do next locally next week. In the meantime, we are working in collaborative partnership with all of our regional hospital partners with the goal of working in unity in support of our respective communities and region. We will keep you updated.
At the same time, we are playing catch up in many aspects of health care as people flood in needing help on health care issues that were bumped or delayed during the pandemic. We are seeing increases in almost all areas of hospital operations including emergency room visits, operating room activity, admissions and outpatient visits – even before flu season hits. Keep in mind, this is while we continue to support COVID-19 care, operating the community COVID-19 Assessment Centre, providing vaccinations for some high-risk populations, and soon to be doing vaccinations for 3rd dose for our staff. Despite having the highest number of staff we have ever had, including the most nurses ever, all of this means that we have some operational challenges.
As we have been hearing from many other hospitals across Ontario, there has also been turnover and retirements during the pandemic as some individuals have re-evaluated their futures in health care. This certainly presents challenges to the health care sector. That’s why, now more than ever we need to work to recruit and retain staff – which is highlighted in our Strategic Plan pillar around staff experience (which includes staff engagement, wellness, and an overall HR strategy). We have heard from you about the need to work together to improve our approach to staffing and scheduling, engage with various teams, and even altering our care model to ensure we are balancing work needs and work life. As an early start, we have enhanced staffing office resources and are looking at scheduling changes where possible.
Going forward, now more than ever it is important that we work together and support each other. We have one house we all work in and a supportive work family makes it a home. We have a dynamic and committed team. I certainly know it hasn’t been easy, however I am so incredibly proud of this team we have at TBRHSC/TBRHRI, and I know we have what it takes to face the future together. As Henry Ford famously said (and I’m paraphrasing) …coming together is a beginning…. keeping together is progress….and working together is success!
Finally, I would like to take a moment to acknowledge that we are in the middle of Treaties Recognition Week (November 1-7). It is a time to honor the importance of treaties, treaty rights and relationships – and their relevance today. The recognition this week provides opportunities to hear from Indigenous Elders and knowledge keepers as their share their stories. Stories are a wonderful way for us to reflect upon the past and connect to Truth and Reconciliation Calls to action through actionable steps –coming through our strategic plan pillar around Equity, Diversity and Inclusion. I look forward to continuing to connect to improve the experience of care for indigenous people. Thank you to Crystal Pirie for her inspirational work to improve partnerships and overall care coordination with communities.
Together we will address racism and other inequities as we strive to create an environment for patients, families and our staff and clinicians where we all belong and feel safe and supported. Below are two links.
The first is a wonderful video from Northwestern Ontario Member of Provincial Parliament Sol Mamakwa.
The second is a link to some provincial resources to help us better inform ourselves.
https://www.ontario.ca/page/teaching-and-learning-resources
As always, I welcome comments on this blog or any other matter. You can reach me at: crockerelr@tbh.net
