Cardiac beds had to be closed: hospital

Nursing shortages forced the Foothills Medical Centre to temporarily close beds in its cardiac intensive care unit last week, a hospital spokesman says.

Four out of 18 bedsin the unit were closed Thursday night for 12 hours, Debbie Goulard, director of admitting and transition services with the Calgary Health Region, confirmed Tuesday.

Even after the closure, there were still six empty beds in the unit, so no patients had to be turned away.

"Bed closures occur in the region all the time during the summer and they occuracross all over health regions in the province," she said.

Closures are planned and co-ordinated among hospitals during the summer, but the quality of patient care doesn't suffer, she added.

"We are experiencing a shortage of staff and I don't think there is any industry in Calgary right now that isn't experiencing a shortage in staff," she said.

Too many nurses ill, on leave

Michelle Senkow,head of the nurses union at the Foothills Medical Centre, said the bed closures last weekpoint to an increasing shortage of nurses.

Closing beds is necessary when too many nurses are on holidays, ill with the flu, or on sick leave, Senkowsaid. In intensive care, one nurses is need for each patient.

"I would rather that the beds do be closed and there's proper staffing for the patients rather than telling people to cope and having too many patients and not enough staff," she said.

It's a vicious cycle, she said,because nurses get sick from working overtime in stressful situations, and some end up going on extended leave.

The Calgary Health Region needs to recruit more nurses, she said.

"They also need to work at the issues to retain the staff that they have, because through the summer I am hearing from staff that are leaving and going elsewhere out of Calgary because of the poor working conditions."