CALEB NICKERSON and EMILY HSUEH
SHAWVILLE Aug. 25, 2020
Though CISSSO brass say they are tentatively aiming to re-open the Pontiac Community Hospital (PCH)’s obstetrics unit by December, one senior staff member at the facility is skeptical that goal will be achieved even by this time next year.
In a press conference on Aug. 25, CISSSO President Josée Filion made an announcement at the CLSC in Shawville detailing future plans for the obstetrics unit at PCH, which has . . .
been plagued with service disruptions for over a year. They announced that a project manager will be hired to incorporate a multidisciplinary team of midwives and doctors to begin a hybrid model of pregnancy monitoring in the Pontiac area.
The unit has been closed since Feb. 21 due to lack of trained nurses. The hospital has hired six nursing graduates since January, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the nurses won’t be able to write the exams to obtain their licenses until September (Quebec allows graduated nurses to get on the job training before they achieve their license).
However, one source at PCH with extensive knowledge of the situation told THE EQUITY that even with a pandemic going on, they were unlikely to achieve their goal of re-opening this year. The source requested anonymity as they are not authorized to speak with media.
They explained that while there have been six new nurses hired at the hospital this year, they need around 12, all with specializations in obstetrics, to fully staff the unit. The new hires have yet to write their exam to become fully licensed and after that, they need to get their obstetrical training, which takes place in Gatineau and lasts at least two months.
“I knew it wasn’t realistic … COVID has nothing to do with it,” the source said in an interview in June, regarding the planned re-opening in September. “Even if these girls had [gone] for their exam before … they wouldn’t have gone … until maybe May for their exam, while the ones that finished [school] in May, they don’t write their exam until August.”
The source said last week that there is always a chance that the new hires will obtain their Ontario licenses and work across the border, where the pay is higher. In addition, not every nurse is cut out for obstetrical work.
“We want to get them trained, but we can’t force them, you know?”
So even if all these trainees get their licenses and specialize in OBS, the best case scenario would be to have roughly half of the staff required for an operational unit by the end of the year. Since the new trainees are usually hired in cohorts when they graduate from school, it wouldn’t be until midway through next year before another group could begin being trained.
The source was also skeptical about relying on midwives as a way of returning the service to the hospital.
“They don’t have enough midwives, that was my understanding,” the source said. “The midwives already have their patients, their clientele in the city. There’s a birthing unit … in Gatineau and they have their midwives there but in order to be able to liberate some midwives that could be on call and come here, they did say that they need more, they don’t have enough there. It’s spreading them even thinner.”
The source noted that though midwives have training that is more extensive in some areas than nurses, they are highly specialized, which means they are of limited use in the hospital, where OBS nurses also work in other departments.
“What people don’t understand is that the nurses that you have for obstetrics … that’s the same pool of nurses that you need to cover the floor,” they said.
The source said that they appreciated that CISSSO’s officials were focusing on long-term solutions to the problem.
“I’m glad that [Filion] said in the conference, ‘We’re not going to open and do like the last time, [where] we’ll be open for a few days and then, oh we have to shut down again for a week or two, then open up again,’” the source said.
