Nurses ‘pushed to their limits’ in central Newfoundland COVID-19 outbreak – CBC
Oct 07, 2021
The central Newfoundland COVID-19 outbreak is taking a toll on registered nurses in the region, says their union, as it adds its voice to mounting calls for the province to deal with chronic health-care staffing shortages in Newfoundland and Labrador.
With three separate clusters in the Central Health region and 11 COVID-19 patients in the hospital in Grand Falls-Windsor as of Wednesday, “right now they are being pushed to their limits,” said Yvette Coffey, the president of the Registers Nurses’ Union Newfoundland Labrador.
There is extra demand at testing sites, at staff vaccination clinics and to care for the hospitalized patients, she said.
As that workload spiked, she said Central Health did make some changes — like bringing in registered nurses from other regions of the province, transferring some COVID-19 patients to St. John’s and delaying some other surgeries and procedures.
