Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos on Tuesday announced the appointment of a federal chief nursing officer tasked with helping the government tackle what the minister called an “ongoing health care crisis.”
Duclos said Lee Chapman, a 20-year veteran of the profession, will take over the job, which has been revived after it was scrapped nearly a decade ago.
Chapman, speaking to reporters at an event in Ottawa, said her job would be to “amplify the nurses’ voice” and complement work already being done by chief nursing officials at the provincial and territorial levels.
WATCH: Duclos reprises role of Chief Nursing Officer
Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos has appointed Lee Chapman to the position of Chief Nursing Officer of Canada to help the government overcome significant staffing shortages in hospitals across the country.
Duclos said Ottawa will not stand idly by while the country’s health care system faces unprecedented staffing problems — shortages that have forced some hospitals to temporarily close emergency rooms or call in with quality of care.
Medical professionals have left the field in droves after more than two years of challenges associated with the pandemic.
In Ontario, nursing associations have also complained about a provincial law limiting wage increases to a low level, something they say hampers efforts to retain experienced nurses and hire new ones.
A recent study, commissioned by the Association of Registered Practical Nurses of Ontario, found that one in every registered practical nurse in the province is considering leaving the profession in the coming months. Nurses cite poor working conditions and a lack of resources to properly treat patients as reasons to leave.
While some provincial health ministers have expressed dismay at the suggestion that there is an ongoing “crisis” in health care — Ontario’s Sylvia Jones said it’s not unprecedented for some emergency departments to temporarily close, for example — Duclos said Tuesday that there are A “growing crisis” is something that needs to be done.
WATCH: Lee Chapman appointed Chief Nursing Officer of Canada
Chapman will take on the role of chief nursing officer — part of the federal government’s approach to an alarming staff shortage in hospitals across the country.
Duclos said Ottawa needs someone like Chapman, an experienced nurse on the front lines, to provide “valuable insight and experience to inform the design of national policies and programmes,” including planned initiatives to expand the healthcare workforce.
“I will be able to count on her and her engagement efforts and abilities to bring people together because we are going through a crisis,” Duclos said.
Nursing associations praised the government’s appointment of Chapman.
Sylvain Brousseau, president of the Canadian Nurses Association, said the profession needs better representation in the federal health bureaucracy.
He said he hopes Chapman can help Ottawa boost the ranks of nurses nationwide.
“We know it can’t be fixed in one day. It’s going to be a long way,” said Brousseau.
Linda Silas, president of the Canadian Federation of Nurses’ Unions, said she reached out to Chapman to arrange a meeting just minutes after her appointment was announced.
She said she wants Chapman to know that many nurses feel “scared” when they go to work each day because staffing levels are very low in many facilities.
“They are afraid of doing something wrong, of hurting a patient because they know they are working and are so understaffed that they can’t provide quality and safety,” Silas told CBC News.
“They are broken. They feel they can’t provide the care they were taught to do. They became nurses because they wanted to do a great job in their community, but now they are stuck.”
Attention: Nurses are ‘afraid’ of understaffing, says union representative
Canada’s new chief nursing officer needs to work on retaining nurses and getting them back to work urgently because many overworked nurses fear making a mistake with a patient, says Linda Silas, president of the Canadian Federation of Nurses’ Unions.
When reporters pressed him to say whether more federal dollars would soon flow into provinces and territories to help a system on the ropes, Duclos said those talks were continuing.
He said it was ultimately up to the country’s finance ministers to come up with an appropriate dollar number for health care — new prime ministers have been asking for funding from Ottawa for years.
Just this week, Ontario Premier Doug Ford and three Atlantic province premiers met in New Brunswick to discuss the situation.
Everyone left the summit calling on Ottawa to spend more than it does now to help counties deal with rising costs as the pandemic continues and the population grows.
Ottawa can do more: Duclos
While Duclos referred to Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland on how much federal money is available, he said there was room for Ottawa to do more.
“I am an ally in resources and outcomes for my colleagues in the healthcare field, who need this support from the federal government,” he said.
But Duclos said governments should tackle the problem with the goal of making tangible improvements, not just spending more money. He noted that Ottawa bears about 35 percent of all health care-related costs already borne by provinces – an assertion that provinces have opposed.
The Liberal Federal Government has stated that it does not wish to write a blank check to the provinces, and that it wants to allocate some of its money to certain initiatives.
In March, Duclos identified Ottawa’s top five priorities: ending service backlogs, more health care workers, better access to primary care, a better system of long-term care and home care for seniors, more resources for mental health and substance abuse and a renewed push for digitization. Health data and facilitate more virtual care.
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