Nearly two and a half years since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the staffing conundrum initially driven by high infection rates has evolved into an acute labour challenge.
Herb Emery, the Vaughan Chair in regional economics at the University of New Brunswick, said when it comes to staff shortages, the pandemic was “like the straw that broke the camel’s back.”
Statistics Canada said job vacancies in health during the first quarter of this year were nearly double what they were two years ago. Nurses and nurses aides were among the top ten occupations with the largest job vacancy increases over that period. Some experts say one solution could be a move toward a team-based approach to care that ensures health-care professionals working at their skill level. This would mean relieving doctors of tasks nurses or pharmacists could take on while having nurses only doing work that requires nursing training.
"Changes in the way health care services are delivered, especially with the growing emphasis on collaborative teams and networks of health providers, means that traditional scopes of practice also need to change.," the report said. "This suggests new roles for nurses, family physicians, pharmacists, case managers and a host of new and emerging health professions."
However, Emery says privatization in this context refers to the delivery of services, not how the services are paid for.
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