Ontario's Registered Practical Nurses (RPN) have published a 30-page report that outlines how the COVID-19 pandemic is pushing most RPNs to a breaking point as they struggle to cope with the emotional, financial and mental health stresses associated with their work.
The study is the result of an online survey of 765 RPNs carried out by the Registered Practical Nurses Association of Ontario (WeRPN) to find out how the practical nurses were coping with increased workload and other stress factors related to their work.
WeRPN said it represents the professional voices of 47,000 RPNs across the province. RPNs are nurses who work in all sectors of health care, including high-risk areas impacted by COVID-19, such as long-term care, retirement facilities and hospitals.
With respect to experiencing "the breaking point," the study said this has happened to "an alarming 71 per cent of nurses” either at work or at home during the pandemic. In addition 96 per cent of the respondents said their daily work experience had become exponentially more stressful as a result of coping COVID-19.
Increased workload was another concern expressed by RPNs, said the study. No less than 90 per cent felt their workload had been increased because of the pandemic, said the study.
The stresses and mental health impact of the pandemic also had 34 per cent of the nurses admitting they have considered quitting their jobs and leave the profession.
Two-thirds of those who said they were ready to quit cited financial reasons. New provincial regulations introduced in the past year say that health-care workers cannot have more than one health-care job, thus restricting part time workers who might pick up extra shifts in another health-care venue.
Along with that WeRPN is also calling on the provincial government to take action on a handful of priority items. This includes a quicker rollout of the vaccine programs, create more full-time positions for nurses and ensure RPNs are fairly paid for the work they do, enhance retention in nursing by creating more opportunities for continued education and career advancement, enhance mental health support for nurses, leverage the experience of nurses on the front lines by including their voices in any future consultation on healthcare reform in Ontario.
Dianne Martin, the CEO of the association, said the study demonstrates the need for better public policies with respect to supporting RPNs, or the province could see many of them quitting the profession.
“Ontarians have always felt a deep sense of gratitude for the dedicated work of our nurses, but this study underscores the need for all of us to galvanize our gratitude into immediate and long-term policies that better support nurses,” said Dianne Martin, CEO, Registered Practical Nurses Association of Ontario (WeRPN). “Otherwise, we could lose many talented nurses at a time when we urgently need them, which would be devastating.”
The WeRPN study also urged the public to support the nursing profession by doing their part to follow public health precautions, thus easing the burden on healthcare workers.
Len Gillis is a Local Journalism Initiative reporter at Sudbury.com, covering health care in Northern Ontario. The Local Journalism Initiative is funded by the federal government.
