Brampton hospital set to reopen ER after closing due to staffing issues

An urgent care centre in Brampton is set to reopen on Monday morning after being forced to close due to staffing issues.

William Osler Health Systems says the Urgent Care Centre at Peel Memorial closed at 5 p.m. on Sunday. It says emergency departments at Brampton Civic Hospital and Etobicoke General remain open for “emergency or urgent care.”

“Like a number of hospitals, we are experiencing human resource challenges and continue to explore all strategies to help our teams continue to provide exemplary care to our community,” the network said in a tweet.

A spokesperson for William Osler tells CityNews the urgent care centre is expected to reopen with normal hours on Monday.

“We ask for our community’s understanding during this difficult time.”

Just last week, there were warnings about recurring emergency department closures at Ontario hospitals, particularly those in smaller communities, due to staffing shortages.

Several ERs in communities such as Perth, Clinton, Listowel and Wingham have had to close recently for hours or even days at a time.

The Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians said there are “record” resignations of health-care personnel, which also worsens wait times and acute care hospital access.

“The emergency department is a window on the health of health care,” they said in a statement. “It has never been more important to pay attention to the current state of emergency departments.”

The group called for a national health human resources strategy to increase the training and education opportunities in nursing and medicine.

Doris Grinspun, the CEO of the Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario, said nurses are exhausted and burned out. In Ontario, she said wage restraint legislation that has capped their salary increases at one per cent per year is not helping, particularly when inflation is now above seven per cent.

“Basically, nurses have gone down in their compensation by 6.5 per cent right at the time that that exhaustion has gone up by 1,000 per cent,” Grinspun said.

She wants to see the province fast track foreign credential recognition and fund more post-secondary programs.

The Ministry of Health said in a statement that it has two programs to provide hospitals with staffing relief, and is expanding undergraduate and post-graduate positions at medical schools, among other measures to address the crisis.

“Hospitals lead their day-to-day operations, and we commend them for working tirelessly to keep operations running smoothly,” spokesperson Anna Miller wrote in a statement.