On the same day the health minister announced plans are underway to establish a field hospital, front-line health-care workers are baffled at how the province will staff the facility when B.C.’s existing hospitals are already critically understaffed.
Last week, Health Emergency Management B.C. wrote in an internal memo obtained by CTV News that Vancouver General Hospital is facing “critical staffing shortages due to staff becoming ill through community exposure” of COVID-19. But now, dozens of health-care workers are speaking up to say the entire hospital system is precariously short-staffed.
Nurses and doctors working in various wards and capacities expressed frustration, exhaustion and despair at the situation; being reassigned to units where they have little to no experience, 12-hour and double shifts without enough time to use the bathroom or eat, barrages of text messages pressuring them to pick up more overtime shifts, feeling abandoned by managers they feel don’t recognize the intense mental and physical strain they’re under every day.
The biggest concern is the ability to deliver adequate patient care while tending to double or triple as many patients as their training and guidelines require them to. Several people described the working conditions as unsustainable for staff and “dangerous” for patients. One doctor bluntly warned the public, “Now is not the time to get injured,” whether it’s taking risks like speeding or engaging in high-impact sports, because B.C.’s health-care system is already tenuous.
Source: bc.ctvnews.ca
Saturday, April 18, 2026
