While staff shortages at Royal Inland Hospital in Kamloops have been front and centre once again, it is also an issue at long term care homes and assisted living facilities.

That is according to Terry Lake, the CEO of the BC Care Providers Association, who says the healthcare sector in general is under a lot of stress these days when it comes to staffing.

“Our organization has been talking about it before the pandemic when I was Minister of Health that we created a plan to address the health human resource issue but like many things that we know are coming at us, it is human nature to kind of put off until it hits your right in the face, kind of like climate change,” he said.

“That is what is happening right now.”

Over the weekend, a two and a half week old boy was taken to Kelowna because of the ongoing staff shortages at RIH. Interior Health says the pediatrics and obstetrics unit was temporarily closed after “a number of late afternoon sick calls”

Speaking on the NL Morning News, Lake says COVID-19 has made the issue much worse.

“Because all of a sudden you have people that are having to work overtime because others are sick,” he added. “We had single site orders which limited the pool of casual employees to fill in the gaps and people are just stressed out and overworked and they are taking a break or leaving the profession entirely.”

Lake says while the government is taking steps to address the crisis, he notes these things take time with people are currently working themselves into the ground.

“They are training more healthcare aides. These are the folks that are at the front lines of long term care and assisted living,” Lake said. “We also saw that 650 new nursing positions have opened up in post secondary institutions across the province but all of these things take time.”

“It is a rocky road at the moment but I think there are some bright lights on the horizon.”