A14- The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, November 13, 2002 Hospital closes five beds because of nursing shortage MILLS MEMORIAL Hos- | pital has closed five of its 25 general medical-surgi- cal beds because it doesn’t have enough nurses. Put it is still able to meet the demands placed on il, says the Northern Health Authority official in charge of health services in this area. “We have excellent co- operation on the part of nurses and doctors,” Cholly Boland in adding that beds are opened when required. The authority has put the hospital on its pricrity list whenever nurses in- quire about working in the north, he said. “We're among the first when nurses are asking [for work],” said Boland. His comments follow a meeting between Boland and the city’s health care monitoring committee, a group which established a to-do list for health care services in Terrace and area. Boland told the com- mittee that contrary to popular opinion, the haspi- tal has nursing vacancies that are full time and are permanent. The oft-repeated criti- cism of health care facili- ties is that they maintain casual positions instead of permanent full. time ones as benefits don’t have to be paid with the former. “I can tell you we have full time permanent post- ings for nurses but we can not fill them,” said Bo- land. He said Mills needs two full time nurses in its in- tensive care ward, a half- time nurse in its labour-de- livery area, five general duty nurses and severai more operating room nurses. A nursing shortage means increased overtime 4 says . Cholly Boland demands which then puts an additional strain on nurses that are there, Bo- land continued. “I’m sure that some over time would be wel- comed in terms of extra compensation, but net a whole lot,” he said. The simple reality, said Boland, is that the number of beds the hospital pro- vides at any one time de-- pends upon the number of nurses it has. “It’s in relation to everything we do,” said Boland of nursing numbers. Mills has an authorized bed count of 39 - 10 of which are part of the re- gional psychiatric unit and four which are in the in- tensive care unit. The leaves 25 for gen- eral purposes, a number that is now down to 20 be- cause of the closure caused by the nursing shortage. Although Mills is slated to increase the number of its general medical ser- vices ward beds from 25 to 35 over the next three years, Boland admits it'll be hard pressed to do that. Boland said hiring more nurses wouldn’t necessari- ly result in more money James W. 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Ida Mohler, member of . the monitoring group who met with Boland, said the creation of full time per- manent nursing positions is welcome. But she acknowledged it will be difficult to find nurses. “The working condi- "tions are not conducive to keeping nurses,” said Mohler who has asked for- mer nurses in the area for the reasons why they left the profession. She said the shortage of nurses translates into a shortage of beds. “T also agree with the former government on this — and that is we need to see more money from the feds.” said Mohler. 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