Nursing staff burnout takes a toll on quality of care
Réseau FADOQ is concerned about the quality of care our overworked nursing staff are able to provide given the rise in overtime hours over the past year.
The largest seniors organization in the country is again demanding that the Legault administration stop defaulting to overtime as a solution and change the provider-to-patient requirement to a more suitable ratio.
A study recently published by Statistics Canada confirms a lamentable trend: the average overtime by nursing staff in Quebec has increased considerably, climbing from 6.2 hours to 16.9 hours a week between May 2019 and May 2020. Another worrisome data point: 48.5% of nursing professionals have reported high levels of work stress during this period.
“The Quebec government needs to stop putting its head in the sand. Burnout is a direct consequence of these ratio problems. It should immediately adopt a law on provider-to-patient ratios, which will improve health care over the medium and the long term,” says Réseau FADOQ President Gisèle Tassé-Goodman.
Taking the long view, inspiring and recruiting the next generation of workers will be key, in particular students completing secondary school. We need to attract young people to healthcare professions. We need to promote these professions to get more students enrolling in the right programs now, so the healthcare system can reap the benefits down the road.
Réseau FADOQ believes this begins by reorganizing the work, ending mandatory overtime, and putting in place more humane provider-to-patient ratios so staff can spend more time actually providing care. Less assembly-line care should translate to more quality time with patients.