St. Marys Memorial Hospital Foundation

Huron Perth Healthcare Alliance is seeking help in fighting a critical lack of nurses.

By Andrea Macko
St. Marys Journal-Argus, October 29, 2008

The Huron Perth Healthcare Alliance (HPHA) is looking into a little preventive medicine — by working with its hospital foundations to help stem the shortage of nurses plaguing not only its member hospitals, but the entire country.

Last week, the St. Marys Memorial Hospital Foundation was the first of the four alliance foundations to hear a proposal from HPHA CEO Andrew Williams that seeks a $1-million commitment over five years from the four sites.

Williams, who calls the nursing shortage the Alliance’s “No. 1 challenge,” told the Journal-Argus that the request for funding for nurses is a “natural progression for the foundations because they’ve been involved with physician recruitment (in the past).”

He also notes that, while some foundations have a dedicated funding source for recruitment, the Alliance does not; rather, it is part of the HPHA’s general budget.

“We haven’t approached (nursing recruitment) in as co-ordinated a fashion as we wanted,” Williams says, compared to physician recruitment or obtaining equipment, two more common areas where foundations have lent a hand in the past.

The money, if the foundations agree to giving it, will be used in a five-point plan not only to recruit new nurses, but retain current staff as well. Key is a mentorship program, says Williams, because, due to the busy nature of nursing “one of the challenges is having the time to give support and guidance (to new staff).”

The funding will also go toward an education fund, as well as hiring and referral bonuses and the creation of summer registered nursing positions for students, to begin fostering an employment relationship in the hopes of retaining them post-graduation.

While the funding admittedly won’t solve all of the problem, Williams says that it “will help us in a very competitive world.”

Bryan Bettger, chair of the St. Marys Memorial Hospital Foundation, notes that “we’ve talked about (the problem) for a year … we’ve spent a pile of money on physician recruitment, but just as urgent in the HPHA is nursing recruitment — one way or another, I think we have to do it.”

Part of the rationale, Bettger says, is that “there have been some dangerous times in the past few years in staffing shortages” in terms of nursing coverage.

According to statistics provided by Williams in his presentation, since May of 2007, for example, 44 nurses have left the HPHA, with 10 of those being retirements. Other reasons given for departures were family commitments, finding work elsewhere or moving out of the area.

Since the same date, 43 registered nurses have been interviewed, with 32 being hired. Reasons for not accepting a position with the HPHA include finding work closer to home, family issues, or accepting a “New Grad” placement that would guarantee a full-time position in the area of their choice.

Bettger and Williams explain that it’s a “buyer’s market,” in that nurses have the pick of where they want to work, and typically, lifestyle plays a factor.

In the HPHA, there are currently 10 full-time and 19 part-time positions available, while at Grand River hospital in Kitchener, for example, there are 22 positions open, with 13 of those being part-time. There are also numerous nursing postings on sites such as Workopolis and the Human Resources Development Canada job site.

“Nurses can go wherever they want,’ says Bettger. He says that the plan for recruiting and retaining nurses “is a little bit like recruiting doctors — there’s a game to be played and if you want to be in it, you have to ante up.”

Bettger also expressed concern over the provincial government’s nursing hiring slowdown in the wake of deficit projects due to the ongoing financial crisis. There are a few government programs available to make it easier for hospitals to hire nurses, but Bettger says that “if they pull them, it’s going to be tough on the system.”

The nature of the hospital foundation is to “have money to help the hospital forever,” says Bettger; accounts currently sit at approximately $2 million, with yearly commitments of $85,000 of general items and $70,000 to the Wellness Centre.

The Foundation still has $400,000 of its $500,000 commitment to the Pyramid Recreation Centre, which is to be paid in $50,000 increments over the next eight years.