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By Teagan Rasche

'A really traumatic experience'

Local nurses endure continued burnout after being reassigned in the fourth wave

Jan 12, 2022 | 4:59 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB – Registered nurse Megan Eggins puts down her coffee and takes a deep breath.

She and her colleagues have been in survival mode for the past two years and they are just getting over the hardest part yet.

“There was quite a few staff who were redeployed and reassigned during the fourth wave,” Eggins said. “Delta hit our city very, very hard and myself included was reassigned, quite a few were redeployed.”

Eggins is also the president of the local United Nurses of Alberta union branch. Her days are normally spent as one of the educators for nursing staff but during the fourth wave, she was reassigned to the COVID unit.

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“It was just a really traumatic experience for some of us and especially when you’re put into a position where you’re uplifted from what your original role is into a different role is hard on a lot of people, especially when it came to family life,” Eggins said.

Although Eggins is passionate about working with patients, the switch wasn’t easy. She says there is even more burnout and mental health challenges among her colleagues now.

Some additional resources have been available, like workshops for union members and a few more courses provided by Alberta Health Services.

But what would really help is more nurses.

“When they say that there’s a shortage, there’s no shortage of beds, there are beds,” John Terry, the south district representative for the UNA executive board said. “Maybe not necessarily in this facility (Medicine Hat Regional Hospital) but in the province, there are beds. There are no people to work those beds, there’s no bedside staff.”

Terry has recently seen more nurses retire, move and exit the profession, putting the already strained system in even more distress.

According to AHS’s website, there are 27 job postings for registered nurses in Medicine Hat.

“This government’s attack on health-care workers, public sector workers in general but mainly healthcare in Alberta, is not making it a very pleasant place to work,” Terry said.

Challenges aside, Terry and Eggins continue to do their jobs because of their passion and love for it.

“Nurses, we come into the profession to care for people and for some it’s a calling in life and for me, it is,” Eggins said.

So she picks up her coffee and returns to the hospital where she’s finally back to working in her normal role.