Wingerter, 22, became a registered nurse in January and began working in the emergency room at Saskatoon’s Royal University Hospital. For the past eight months, they have been mired in burnout, burnout, overcapacity and nursing shortages — problems that also plague nurses and other health care workers in other parts of Canada. “You don’t get a break. You have to run for 12 hours straight doing one thing after another,” said Wingerter, who spoke for the first time about her experience at a Maclean’s article. Wingerter says 40 to 50 patients typically wait for care each day in a waiting room that has room for about 20 people. There aren’t enough nurses or beds for such a high patient load, Wingerter says. On one occasion, Wingerter says there were a total of 120 patients in the ER. A patient who was “coding” — requiring immediate life-saving measures — was stuck on an ambulance stretcher in the ambulance bay because of a lack of beds, according to Wingerter. It also describes paramedics lining the wards waiting to unload patients, a STARS Air Ambulance stuck waiting an hour for a bed for their patient and nurses having to treat people in the corridors. Tracy Zambori, president of the Saskatchewan Nurses Union (SUN), says she fears the worst-case scenario could finally happen. “Someone could die because they didn’t have timely access to care because of the nursing crisis,” Zambory said.
146 hours of OT in 1 month
Wingerter says she worked 290 hours in May. That’s 146 hours of overtime on top of the 144 hours he would have worked regularly. While she acknowledges that it was her choice to work so much overtime, she says she felt “guilty” about not helping her co-workers in dire straits. “At the end of that month, I thought, ‘I can’t go on doing this anymore.’ I’m young, but I can’t work that much. I’ll end up killing myself if I do,” Wingerter said. SUN, which oversees 10,000 registered nurses, nursing assistants and registered psychiatric nurses in the province, released data from this spring showing 83 percent of members reported vacancies in their units, more than double last year. Jacelyn Wingerter says she is now working fewer overtime shifts after clocking 290 total hours in May. (Submitted by Jacelyn Wingerter) Wingerter says the pressure on nurses hinders their ability to build a relationship with patients. “We’re doing what we need to do to make them better. But we’re not taking those extra steps to make them feel heard, to feel connected to their health care providers,” Wingerter said.
Extreme exhaustion
Wingerter says she never imagined she would be so burned out at her age. It affected all aspects of her life, leading to things like poor sleep and only wanting to stay home on her days off because she had no energy. Many of her colleagues feel the same way, Wingerter says. “The biggest thing that everybody says is that they just don’t recognize themselves anymore, like they don’t know who they are outside of work anymore,” he said. “Because you just give it your all and there’s nothing left after.” He still works full-time in the ER, but takes fewer overtime shifts. Saskatchewan Nurses Association president Tracy Zambori says she wants the government to give nurses a seat at the table to deal with staffing shortages. (Saskatchewan Nurses Association) Zambory says nurses are burning out across Saskatchewan. “That feeling of burnout, of feeling overwhelmed, of not being able to cope with what’s happening in the workplace is rampant throughout health care,” he said. “It affects the entire registered nursing profession in this province.” Zambori says she recently spoke with Premier Scott Moe and wants him and the Saskatchewan Health Authority to “admit there is a nursing crisis” and give nurses a seat at the table to discuss solutions. In a prepared statement, the Ministry of Health said “there are challenges to human health resources across the country that Saskatchewan is also facing right now.” Work to recruit and retain staff continues, the statement said. An additional statement from Moe said “further details will come from the government in the coming weeks.”
