Rainy River health organizations hit hard by staff shortages

Concerned organizations in Rainy River, Ont. say the town's medical system is on life support as they struggle to recruit and retain staff.

The northwestern Ontario town is facing dire shortages of both doctors and paramedics, said Mayor Deborah Ewald at an Ontario Health Coalition press conference Friday.

"There needs to be some significant changes because otherwise people are going to die," said Ewald. 

Rainy River's local physician group announced last month it will be pulling its hospital and clinic physician services while they try to negotiate a new contract with the Ministry of Health. 

This leaves the town without any permanent physicians, Ewald said. While Riverside Health Care has secured temporary locum physician services for the hospital and emergency room, they are only contracted until the end of November.

Rainy River has a large population of seniors who have voiced significant fears about losing access to local physicians, said Ewald.

"These people have lived in this area their whole lives and they've paid their fair share of taxes and everything. And all of a sudden when they're in their old age, their healthcare is kind of being pulled out from underneath them," she said. 

Paramedics' union says recruiting, retaining staff challenging

The union representing paramedics says emergency services are also struggling with staffing. 

"Our existing workforce is just not sufficient to maintain the services that our communities need," said Malcolm Daley, president of CUPE local 4807, which represents paramedics and hospital workers. 

"We're no longer treading water and we're starting to drown," he said.

Recruitment and retention have been ongoing issues, said Daley. While very few new paramedics are joining their workforce, significant numbers of paramedics are either leaving for other services elsewhere or leaving the profession entirely, he added.

Many northwestern Ontario paramedic services used to rely heavily on hiring "overflow" staff from southern Ontario, where competition was more fierce for limited jobs, said Daley, who is a paramedic himself. As widespread staffing shortages throughout the province mean more choices for new paramedics looking for work, Daley said now it's harder for northern services to compete for talent.

The staff shortages have resulted in paramedics needing to work longer and longer hours, Daley said. 

"Our paramedics are putting in astronomical amounts of overtime, up to 50% greater than full time work hours annually, and they're starting to to fail and to falter," he said. 

Ontario Health Coalition says more funding needed

Natalie Mehra, executive director of the Ontario Health Coalition, said Rainy River is just one of many places in Ontario struggling to keep medical staff. 

"We don't have the details of the contracts with the physicians, but what we do know is that there are disputes around the province that are resulting in physicians leaving. I don't know who's right and wrong in that. I just know that it has to be resolved," she said

Mehra said she wants to see places like Rainy River given more sustainable funding so they can decrease reliance on temporary staff. 

"All the money that's being wasted on overtime and for-profit staffing agencies-- that could and should go toward a regular staff force that stabilizes the sector," she said.