Province launches 10 year health-care staffing plan using 2022 data
Newfoundland and Labrador is looking to fill the gaps in its health-care workforce
Newfoundland and Labrador is predicting what it will take to meet the province's healthcare needs in 21 health-care professions over the next decade.
On Thursday, the Department of Health released phase one of its health human resources plan, which focuses on the retention and recruitment of health-care professionals, including nurses, therapists, laboratory workers and pharmacists.
Health Minister Krista Lynn Howell said the plan aims to address gaps in the workforce by modelling the supply and demand of workers in the provincial health-care system while prioritizing their work-life balance.
"We also had a focus from this report on exploring ways to automate non-clinical aspects of some professions to support an improved work-life balance for health professionals," Howell told reporters.
"It allows a greater focus on patient care and will positively transform service delivery approaches."
But the province's registered nurses' union is concerned the plan will miss its mark.
President Yvette Coffey told CBC News the plan is based on outdated data, which fails to accurately represent the demand for nurses in 2025.
"It's based on the core staffing, which what I mean by that is the number of registered nurses or nurse practitioners to a specific number of patients in their care," said Coffey, adding that data on nurse-to-patient ratios are even more outdated.
"I mean like 30-40 year old data, it's based on patients who were in the hospital for surgery that today is done as an outpatient procedure. It's based on a healthier population than we have here right now," she said.
The nurses union would like to see a focus on violence prevention. Otherwise, Coffey said the recruitment of nurses won't work.
"This report paints a dire forecast for the future of nursing in this province with the vacancies, and I would agree," she said.
"Right now we have a surge of patients and we are looking at our staff and saying, there is no more staff and you have to take on these extra patients."
Howell said the new plan is a snapshot from 2022, but its outlooks are subject to change.
"The model is adaptable and dynamic, and as we have new measures to put in, we will get new outputs to come out," Howell said.
Phase two of the plan is expected to be released this spring and will make projections for 36 physician specialities.
Download our free CBC News app to sign up for push alerts for CBC Newfoundland and Labrador. Sign up for our daily headlines newsletter here. Click here to visit our landing page.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
With files from Julia Israel