Six months of ‘unprecedented’ staff shortages ahead, says Hay River health authority

Overall health companies in Hay River are experiencing an “unprecedented” staffing scarcity, claims the area health and fitness authority.

Erin Griffiths, chief executive officer of the Hay River Wellbeing and Social Companies Authority, posted a assertion on the web Thursday.

Griffiths wrote that the wellness authority “is getting ready for a considerable impact to their workforce of 250 staff members and perhaps a short term reduction of products and services to the communities we serve.”

The N.W.T. has been grappling with a shortage of health and fitness treatment staff in modern decades, as has significantly of the nation. Previous summer time a scarcity of nurses forced Yellowknife’s Stanton Territorial Medical center slash its intensive treatment potential, and in December, the governing administration shut the hospital’s birthing unit for extra than two months for comparable motives.

In mid-2021, the Registered Nurses Association of the Northwest Territories and Nunavut warned the pandemic was producing a globally nursing lack.

Griffiths wrote that the Hay River health authority is looking at shortages across a wide swath of positions, which include occupational therapists, physiotherapists, registered nurses, spouse and children doctors, diagnostic solutions and social services.

“These positions are in quite substantial desire, and [the authority] is not exempt from the nationwide shortages of employees,” Griffiths said.

She said the shortages in Hay River are expected to last for the next six months.