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NLIS 3
May 1, 2000
(Health and Community Services)


The following statement was issued today by Roger Grimes, Minister of Health and Community Services. It was also read in the House of Assembly:

Summer Hospital Bed Closures

As honorable members are aware, every year the health and community services boards around the province plan for summer hospital bed closures. Based on past years, it is anticipated that between May and September, up to one quarter of the beds in our province�s health facilities may close in order to facilitate vacation periods for physicians, nurses, other health professionals and support staff.

Just as in any organization, staff look forward to time off from work to spend with their family and friends. This is also a priority in the health profession. However, managing staff vacations with the needs of patients who are ill is a real balancing act. This is an unavoidable situation in a profession which serves to take care of people in a hospital, nursing home or other clinical setting.

The health and well-being of the people of Newfoundland and Labrador will remain the number one priority during all summer bed closures around the province. So while routine surgeries and hospital admissions will be scaled back in favour of staff vacation time, this will not occur where the medical needs of the people are compromised.

As always, there will be difficulty in managing leave in specialty areas like critical care units. That�s because only a small portion of our health professionals become trained to work in these areas.

In regions where there are a shortage of particular health professionals, arranging vacation time may also be more difficult. This problem is faced by all other provinces across Canada, and in most instances, stems from national shortages in some health professions and trades.

In this province, we have taken action to manage our human resources well. We have set up an Integrated Health Human Resource Planning Committee which is made up of representatives of government, boards, associations and employee groups. Sub-committees are doing work to ensure we in this province are least affected by national shortages and other negative trends. This could mean many things from evaluating our current education programs to looking at scopes of practice.

We have also made key investments as it relates to health human resources. In 1999, we created 125 new permanent nursing positions and we converted up to 540 casual nursing positions to permanent status. We also provided additional support staff. Government has set aside money for incentive programs for physicians, nurses and allied health professionals, such as signing bonuses and bursary programs. Money is also allotted to hire nurse practitioner program graduates, and we will spend more to hire new salaried physicians.

In addition to this, government agreed in February to a classification review of the nursing occupation, including the licenced practical nurse classification, and the social worker classification. The purpose of the review is to ensure current classifications properly reflect the complexity of the work employees perform. This reflects the changing nature of many health care related professions which is evident by classification reviews already under way for such classes as physiotherapists, pharmacists and dieticians represented by the Association of Allied Health Professionals.

Arranging vacation for the thousands of people who work in our health system is no easy task. However, I am assured that our regional boards will do their best to maximize the number of staff who do receive a vacation, while balancing this with an adequate number of bed closures so as not to interfere with the urgent and emergent needs of patients. Government will continue to work closely with boards to monitor the situation to ensure that health services to the public are maintained.

2000 05 01                                              2:10 p.m.


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