The MPP for Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound says the nursing staff shortage in the region is a top priority he’ll focus on in 2022.
Bill Walker says while there’s been great progress made to help address the issue long-term with the new four-year nursing degree program announced at Georgian College in Owen Sound, the challenge of attracting personal support workers, registered practical nurses and registered nurses needs to be worked on.
“We’ve just had some announcements in regards to nursing shortages in our healthcare system,” Walker says, referring to the recent decision by South Bruce Grey Health Centre to close the emergency room at the Walkerton hospital nightly from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. due to staffing challenges.
The SBGHC Chesley Hospital has been in a similar situation since 2019. It’s emergency room shifted away from 24/7 service then because of a lack of nursing staff.
“That’s certainly something that has been systemic across the province,” Walker says of the nursing staff shortages in the region. “I think again, Covid has exasperated it. A lot of people have retired where they maybe wouldn’t have as quick. People have left the profession just because of the stress and the anxiety.”
The new four-year nursing degree granting program at Georgian College is scheduled to begin in September 2022. While it will be years until it starts supplying nurses to the area, Walker is hopeful this program will be a big step to help address the staff shortages in healthcare in the region long-term.
“That’s going to help people who want to stay close to home, and hopefully will remain at home,” says Walker. “What was happening was people were going off to the city and being scooped up in the urban centres by big hospitals or big long-term care facilities there.”
Meanwhile, when asked if 2022 will be the year in his view that Ontario will be able to move past the pandemic in a meaningful way in terms of government regulations of adapt its response to reflect Covid’s endemic reality, Walker says he certainly hopes so.
“We were heading there. We felt that way had put in some good programs and policies to start the recovery process and then of course Omicron came at us which no one could really see or predict,” Walker says. “And that’s the challenge with something like this pandemic.”
The Bruce Grey Owen Sound MPP says he thinks as a government the Progressive Conservatives will always be looking to the future about how to move forward and come back to as much of a sense of normalcy, but with an eye also to be ready to adjust.
“We’ll always put the health and safety and well-being of people as our first priority and try to balance that as much as we can to ensure people have their jobs there for them and the services they need, when they need them,” Walker explains.
Looking back on 2021, Walker says there are a lot of good things that got missed because of Covid. He highlights the start of construction on a new $53-million Grey Bruce Health Services hospital in Markdale. Work on the facility commenced in late February 2021 after around 20 years of community fundraising for the project.
“Certainly in my 10 years it’s been a project I worked on,” Walker says.
He also says a lot of infrastructure work has been ongoing as well with funding support from the provincial government, including the new Georgian Bay Community School in Meaford, an expansion for St. Mary’s High School in Owen Sound and the Big Dig on Berford Street in Wiarton.