I love my nursing profession. I often think back to my time on the floor. For almost three decades I provided direct care to the rural Saskatchewan communities where I have spent most of my life. It is difficult to put into words how rewarding it has been, and I know nurses everywhere feel the same.
It’s hard to explain that feeling you get when you help change a patient’s life. Nursing is about those moments – big and small – when you truly make a difference. Be it the joyous moments, the sad ones, the trying ones, or even that moment when someone is ready to leave this world, each one is uniquely sacred. People count on us.
Unfortunately, nursing is not the same anymore. Saskatchewan and Canada are in a dire nursing shortage, and nobody is stepping up to help us.
Unfortunately, nursing is not the same anymore. Saskatchewan and Canada are in a dire nursing shortage, and nobody is stepping up to help us.
This Labour Day is particularly personal for me. When I think about how there is no one waiting in the wings to save us, I realize this is exactly why Unions exist. Unions give workers a voice and empower them to be bold and to push for bold changes – especially during difficult times.
SUN members reach out to me daily with heartbreaking stories of the impacts of this nursing crisis on their patients and on their own well-being. Nurses are tired and they are breaking. They are leaving our beloved profession because they are working in untenable situations in a system that has, in many respects, collapsed already.
Every day, as many as 40 rural facilities are forced to offer limited healthcare services due to a lack of staff. Rural emergency room closures are becoming a grim reality for many.
Every day, as many as 40 rural facilities are forced to offer limited healthcare services due to a lack of staff. Rural emergency room closures are becoming a grim reality for many.
As a rural nurse myself, I know what it means to SUN members who serve these communities, especially the heavy emotional toll it takes when access to vital services is interrupted. These folks are not just our patients, they are our families, our neighbours, and our friends.
Cities are also struggling. Hospitals are overcrowded, overburdened, and desperately short of nursing staff. This means long wait times, beds in hallways, and ultimately, patient suffering. Few can fathom what it’s like to be unable to provide the care you know is needed because you are working in a busy urban emergency room that’s up to 40 percent short of nursing staff, while paramedics line the hallways with patients requiring urgent care. This is what Saskatchewan’s nurses are facing.
Seniors’ care, home care, public health, mental health, northern health – no corner of our province’s health system has been left unscathed by this nursing crisis.
Seniors’ care, home care, public health, mental health, northern health – no corner of our province’s health system has been left unscathed by this nursing crisis.
In the spring of 2022, 83 percent of frontline registered nurses told SUN there were vacancies in their workplaces, while 84 percent reported patients are being put at risk due to short staffing.
I personally met with Premier Moe this summer. We need the government to acknowledge the severity, urgency, and depth of this crisis, before tragedy strikes.
We need a nursing task force that includes SUN, educators, and regulatory bodies that can leverage the firsthand experiences and knowledge of frontline nurses to find solutions. Supporting and retaining nurses already working, helping willing nurses who have left the profession return, and educating and recruiting new nurses, are urgent conversations we need to be having.
Finding the collective strength to push for this action and to become advocates for ourselves is the single biggest challenge facing Saskatchewan and Canada’s nurses today.
We simply cannot give up. Too much is at stake.
In solidary this Labour Day, and every day.
Tracy Zambory, RN
President, Saskatchewan Union of Nurses
