An “extreme shortage” of ultrasound techs means Interior Health is cutting two different kinds of ultrasound service in Nelson and Castlegar until they can hire more people to run the machines.
Photo source: gregor_y, Flickr, Creative Commons.
Starting on Tuesday, Feb. 1 in Nelson echocardiography (heart ultrasound) will no longer be available. As of Thursday, Feb. 3 in Castlegar, no form of ultrasound will be offered.
Thalia Vesterback, director of diagnostic imaging for Interior Health East, says Interior Health has given doctors a heads up about the shortages.
“The technologist who’s gone off on leave did go off earlier than anticipated, that might be a bit of why it looks like a sudden panic.”
Despite the short notice to the public, Vesterback says Interior Health was aware the shortages were coming and has been trying to fill the vacancies. In the meantime, the health authority is looking to use contractors to fill some of the service gaps.
Heart ultrasound no longer available in Nelson
Interior Health will continue to provide the “vast majority” of ultrasound service in Nelson, however the echocardiography service (heart ultrasound) will be cut.
“That is because of the specialized training that’s needed to do that kind of study and the shortage of technologists we have in this region who have that skill set.”
Patients who need an emergency heart ultrasound will have to go to Trail, an hour down the highway from Nelson.
Vesterback says the majority of heart ultrasounds are not part of treatment for emergencies like heart attacks.
Other ultrasound services will still be available in Nelson.
Castlegar’s ultrasound shut down for now
Castlegar’s ultrasound will be shut down because they don’t have an ultrasound technologist to go to Castlegar on a regular basis.
Castlegar patients needing ultrasound services (not heart ultrasound) will have to go to Nelson or Trail.
This is not the first dilemma for the ultrasound in Castlegar. In October 2010, Interior Health announced plans to move the city’s ultrasound to Trail. The news sparked protests among the public and the city council even closed the road leading to the Castlegar and District Community Health Centre to all truck traffic in an effort to stop the equipment from leaving.
Interior Health backed away from moving Castlegar’s ultrasound but has said it can only guarantee the equipment will stay for a year.
Vesterback repeated what she said last year: that the ultrasound machine is not leaving the community.
Priority is supporting acute care in Trail, Nelson
Vesterback says Interior Health’s priority is to provide staffing for the acute care offered at Kootenay Boundary Regional Hospital in Trail and Kootenay Lake Hospital in Nelson.
So the emphasis on using their ultrasound techs is to send them to Nelson and Trail.
IH looking at contractors to as a temporary measure
Interior Health is looking at alternative ways to fill the vacancies, including bringing in locums and finding contractors to work in Nelson and Castlegar. The health authority is reviewing a list of applicants – both individuals and companies – to a call they put out for ultrasound technologists. Vesterback says they’ll use these contractors to keep their wait lists down.
Just who are the contractors? Vesterback says she doesn’t know a lot about them. Interior Health would prefer to hire people to become permanent members of their staff, Vesterback says, but there are ultrasound technologists looking to work temporarily in different places and then go elsewhere.
Will using contractors be more expensive? Vesterback says part of the process in evaluating the applications from contractors is looking at the total costs and balancing that against meeting the needs of patients.
Vesterback says she’ll look at staffing levels over the next six to eight months and where they’ll need to use contractors to fill the needs. Wait times will play a role in that decision process.
Filling the vacancies
The problem lies in finding technologists to run the ultrasound machines.
“We have an extreme shortage of ultrasound techs across Interior Health and across the province,” says Vesterback. In fact, she says, the shortage is worldwide and the health authority has been struggling for years to fill the vacancies.
Interior Health has 14 vacancies listed on their website.
Vesterback traces the shortage to the fact not enough ultrasound technologists are being trained. There is hope, in the long term, however. Vesterback says changes to the curriculum at BCIT means that institute should start turning our more of the needed technologists.
The first grads aren’t expected until 2012 and even then, Interior Health will have to compete with the rest of the world. Vesterback says she’s heard about job postings from Australia for ultrasound techs.
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We are spending a fortune on a CAT scanner and now we can’t afford ultrasound? What’s going on?
It’s the staffing that’s the issue. The community ponied up the cash for the CT scanner and it’s Interior Health that can’t afford to run the ultrasound.
If you think it doesn’t make sense to you, I would suggest talking with some IHA employees who will tell you it makes no sense to them either.
Our provincial government has mandated that medical costs shall not rise in our province until sometime in 2012. No cost increases.
The only group of health care workers that negotiated before this edict were the nurses who got increases in their latest agreement. All others are being offered 0% or less. Minor increases to benefits offered on contracts negotiated today do not take effect until 2012.
At the same time, most government employees and politicians got an increase to reflect inflation and some got more.
Managers and supervisors are forced to use a large pool of casual workers because they are not paid benefits. No health benefits, no sick days, no pension, and employees who don’t know if they are working until the phone rings at 6 am. Employees on unpaid practicums doing the work of paid employees. The list goes on.
To make matters worse, the IHA has recently rolled out a “Computer Upgrade” in our area that has been anything but. Jobs that used to be done by one person now take two in many cases. Instead of hiring an ultrasound tech, they are hiring people to input data into this new system as it works so poorly. It has gone enormously over budget and that is in part why we have no ultrasound techs.
Absolutely appropriate call for Inferior Health. Their mandate is not to prevent disease, and health issues, but to respond to the health crisis when it is too late and costs more to all of us. I would be dead if not for having a cardiac echo done here in Nelson! I feel sorry for the Nurses, Doctors, and Staff that have to deal with IH’s nearsightedness everyday.
This shortsightedness relates also to the CT scanner.
Seems like the IHA tricked the people of Nelson.
The Ct was requested by the er doctors for emergency care, ie 24/7 to help make critical decisions in a timely manner.
Having a community raise the funds for daytime use was thought to be unacceptable and unfair but went along with it.
The er docs said that the ct scan was promised to us as early as November 2007 as was reported in a Nelson daily news article. Later, the docs found out, to their surprise, it would be tied to renovations for obscure reasons. Now we find out it should be a Monday to Friday tool. Docs have said they have never heard such a scenario in rural emergency medicine.
The iha had many years to plan this. What happened there? Was this the plan all along to control costs? Did the iha refrain from informing the public during fundraising as to impede the efforts of the generous people of this community?
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