New hospital needs new staff, Williams says

The new Baffin Regional Hospital will not be an improvement over the current one unless the GN finds the resources to hire more staff, Quttiktuq MLA Rebekah Williams told Health Minister Ed Picco.

Only four rooms are open at the current facility because there are not enough nurses to run the hospital at full capacity.

“We have this hospital that is almost empty. There are all those beds up there but they say there are no beds because there is no staff,” Williams said.

“Some beds have been closed, but that’s not unique to this building,” Picco said.

The minister admitted his department has had trouble attracting staff to work in Nunavut, but said the new facility may make it easier to recruit new health workers.