N.L. pharmacists call for more support as vacancy rates climb higher

Pharmacists say staffing shortages in Newfoundland and Labrador hospitals are causing stress and reducing time with patients. Garrett Barry has more.

ST. JOHN’S - Staffing shortages across Newfoundland and Labrador hospitals make for stressful days and less interaction with patients, according to a veteran pharmacist in St. John’s.

Lorie Carter joined a lunch-time protest in St. John’s on Wednesday, calling for better support for hospital pharmacists in the province.

“Our pharmacists are being pulled back from those clinical areas where they are helping patients directly and being asked to come back and fill in roles like in the dispensary,” she explained to reporters.

“If we’re not on the patient floor where patients are and where we provide benefit…then that benefit is not happening.”

The Association of Allied Health Professionals, which represents Carter, said 20 per cent of public sector pharmacy jobs are unfilled across Newfoundland and Labrador Health Services. The association adds that in some rural sites, the vacancy rates have climbed even higher.

“They’re involved in all those care routines,” said Gord Piercey, the president of the association.

He described hospital pharmacists as unsung heroes of patient care teams, who are often involved but sometimes unseen.

“As their time has been stretched, some of that availability has been cut away,” he added. “That’s a concern for everyone involved, and it can be impactful on patient care.”

Piercey said some of the province’s smaller hospitals are operating with just one pharmacist, or even none. It means work gets passed to professionals in other areas, who cannot meet with patients directly.

Pharmacists who participated in the demonstration on Wednesday outside the Health Sciences Centre in St. John’s, asked for better wages and bigger incentives to get new graduates into the public field.

Public-sector pharmacy jobs — like those inside hospitals — have become far less appealing compared to other career paths that have begun offering better pay, Carter said.

“I have directly spoken with pharmacists who would like to come work for hospitals,” Carter said. But compared to the $20 per hour more that pharmacists are paid elsewhere, Carter says the gap is not worth it.

“Who could take that pay cut? Nobody would do that.”

Carter said she’s been working with the provincial health authority since 2012, and after contributing to the pension plan for so long, she can’t imagine leaving for a community pharmacy job at a retail location.

But she worries that other younger pharmacists will do just that.

“[We’re] skipping lunch breaks, skipping coffee breaks,” she said.

“I hear about pharmacists [on their] Sunday nights at home, writing notes and reading charts to get ready for Monday, because they know that Mondays are not going to have enough time to do all the things that they want to do.”

In a statement, Newfoundland and Labrador Health Services (NLHS) said it has been in discussion with the Association of Allied Health Professionals, about pharmacist workloads and is “currently reviewing the best way to address these challenges.”

The NLHS is also offering a suite of incentives to new graduates, including a $50,000 bursary in exchange for a promise of working for the health authority.

Over the past 12 months, NLHS said it has hired 12 pharmacists to work in the public sector.