Yukon NDP raises red flags about record-keeping in health care

The Yukon NDP is concerned that the territorial government is in the dark about staffing shortages in health care.

Party leader Kate White said she had been hearing about nurses at the Yukon Hospital Corporation being called to cover shifts on their days off. She said that prompted the party to seek further details by filing an access to information request for last year's records at the corporation.

"Our office inquired with the corporation to find out just how short they are. The answer was shocking. Yukon Hospital Corporation does not know how often or exactly how short-staffed its departments are on an ongoing basis," White said during question period on Wednesday.

The party later shared with reporters what it learned during the request process. It provided an estimate of costs sent back from the ATIPP (Access to Information and Protection of Privacy) office. In an email, the office wrote it would take 162 hours of work to process the request. The total cost to complete the request came to $4,710.

The reasoning for the estimate was that the information sought by the party wasn't readily available.

"Yukon Hospital Corporation (YHC) does not have aggregate numbers available. Therefore, a report would need to be created to complete this request," the ATIPP office wrote.

"In order to compile this report, the staffing and scheduling team needs to look through all daily schedule reports, by departments, by hand to isolate all unfilled shifts."

Essentially, the NDP says the details it's seeking on staffing shortages are like pieces of a puzzle that are scattered within the corporation.

Without somebody putting pieces together, the party contends that the government is missing an accurate picture of the problem, including possible solutions.

"I'm sitting across from a government that says they make evidence-based decisions. Well, if you're not collecting the evidence, which is tracking when we have slots in the schedule that are open, then how on earth are you going to make an evidence-based decision?" White said.

During question period this week, White asked the health minister if she would commit to tracking staff shortages at the corporation "to ensure that nurses have the support that they need to do their jobs."

In response, Health Minister Tracy-Anne McPhee cast the issue as being about the government's support for medical professionals, before extolling the heroism of health-care workers during the pandemic.

McPhee later told reporters that her department keeps statistics about nursing and vacancies. 

"I can tell you that we know on a regular basis where our vacancies are, in order to hire replacements for people," she said.

"If there's a vacancy in Mayo or if there's a nursing station there, if there's a major vacancy in home care or long-term care, we need to be hiring those positions. We absolutely track that."

The Yukon Hospital Corporation is run by a board that is at arm's length from the government. However, under the Hospital Act, the government is still responsible for ensuring available facilities and programs, and compliance with standards of care.

The minister can also provide grants and funding to help the corporation meet its obligations under the law.

The NDP also flagged a lack of data available regarding emergency medical services (EMS), sharing emails it exchanged with Brian Currie, the records officer and designated access officer for the Department of Community Services.

In the emails, Currie confirms that Yukon EMS does not track Code Yellows, which are situations when an ambulance is unavailable but there is no emergency request on hold.

Neither does he dispute the party's assertion that Yukon EMS only partially tracks Code Reds, which are cases when there are emergency requests waiting with no ambulances available.

The party asked Currie to confirm that Code Reds are tracked by the month but not the day, and that there's no tracking of how long another call has to wait for a response.

"I agree with your clarifications below," he replied.