Several communities can expect to their health centres to close again this summer as Nunavut’s Department of Health continues to contend with staff shortages.
The Department of Health has not released a schedule — communities where health centre closures will occur this summer will be notified in the weeks leading up to the closure via local social media and radio.
This is due to the difficulty in securing summer relief staff amid a national shortage of healthcare professionals. In response to this, the Department of Health will be developing contingency plans to ensure continuity in urgent healthcare services in the territory.
In communities where routine health services will be unavailable or limited, the department will use a combination of fly-in paramedic/clinic services and virtual health check-ins to support Nunavummiut.
Calls will continue to be directed to local health centres and may also be directed to virtual support services. Calls could also be routed to health centres in other communities.
There may be delays during this time, so callers are advised to stay on the line when contacting a health centre.
Support staff will be available to assist with services like prescriptions and medical travel, but residents are advised to fill their prescriptions before the date of any given health centre closure.
Covid-19 vaccinations will continue to be available through appointments.
The really bad part of this is Canada has an overabundance of hero healthcare workers so many trained medical people were healthy and worked through the pandemic but refused the experimental “vaccine” and were let go without any pay. They are finding work in other fields now. I just read also that British Columbia is hiring from outside of Canada 16,000 medically trained people so many heroes who worked all the overtime through the pandemic mandated out of their jobs there. Ontario is also short staffed and are training more people to fill in as long as they have taken the government mandated shots first. So many good people now out of work cannot even travel. This is a caused disaster, it sure seems to me.