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IH CEO says childcare, parking solutions eyed as morale boosters for RIH staff

Childcare eyed for RIH staff

The head of Interior Health says the health authority is looking at securing a childcare arrangement for healthcare workers at Royal Inland Hospital in a bid to improve staff morale.

Healthcare workers at the Kamloops hospital have shared stories in recent years about understaffing and unsupportive work environments leading to burnout.

IH CEO Susan Brown said Thursday the health authority is focusing on recruitment and retention efforts and is taking steps to alleviate “the little things” that can cause persistent stress.

Brown said part of this includes childcare.

“We are focusing in on a provider with trying to work on a deal with childcare, which would be as close proximity to the hospital as possible," she said.

"Those things are really important to people and it takes away worry for people when they're at work.”

Brown said the health authority is also looking at parking solutions for healthcare workers.

“If you're having to park kilometres away after a 12-hour shift, that's just another burden," she said.

"So [we're] really focusing in on that parking, and we know that there'll be some additional parking stalls at the site in March."

According to Brown, ongoing renovations at the Royal Inland Hospital emergency department have created a difficult work environment for staff.

“It's a very challenging physical environment while we go through renovations, the team are doing tremendous work there, they're very dedicated," she said.

"And we know there's light at the end of the tunnel, but it's trying to provide them with any support we can in this interim state."

She said she spent a lot of time at the emergency department during her visit to Royal Inland Hospital on Thursday and is “taking away some thoughts on how we can help them with the physical environment there.”

When it comes to hiring, Brown said IH is still working to recruit more healthcare workers to the Kamloops hospital, including graduating students.

She noted this can include letting prospective employees know what Kamloops can offer for their families, and incentivizing students who have worked in the community already to stay.

“We have worked tremendously with the ministry to help them understand the challenges here at Royal Inland, and they've been incredibly supportive of giving us a suite of tools to incentivize people to stay or to bring them to this community,” Brown said.

“When people get offers, they’ll be able to weigh them against other areas in the province but I would say that Royal Inland, our incentives here should be substantial compared to other areas at this point in time.”

Brown said while there are still staffing vacancies to fill, there have been staff retained, and Royal Inland is seeing some healthcare workers return to the site who had previously left.

“[We] still have vacancies as you've noticed, but still continuing every effort to provide incentives for the staff here, and trying to address what is important to the staff,” she said.

“They've heard they want to have better connection with our senior executive team. We were here two weeks ago, and the whole team did tours of the site. We heard from the mental health team here and in the community about some tremendous work they're doing and they're proud of. So trying to just have a presence at the site and support the staff.”



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