Grand River Hospital and St. Mary’s General Hospital are looking to create a buffer to prevent current staff from burning out
Eight months into the COVID-19 pandemic, many hospital workers are at risk of burning out as the workload increases.
In addition, older staff at both Grand River Hospital and St. Mary’s General Hospital are beginning their transition into retirement.
Renee Giroux is the Integrated Director for Laboratories for both hospitals and says job postings are going up for all of their departments.
She notes that the microbiology department is under greater stress as of late due to the increase in testing.
“They are working quite hard, and I just need to make sure that we have enough buffer to accommodate. You know, staff still need to take their vacations; they do get sick, so I need to make sure everybody is taken care of, both for our patients and for our lab team,” she said.
On top of that, GRH is also processing more tests from surrounding areas, meaning they are in need of more admin clerical support and medical lab assistants.
“We are taking testing from assessment centres that are separate to our two organizations, as well as supporting Cambridge, and looking at other Waterloo-Wellington hospitals that will be sending their swabs to us, and so what that means is there is a lot of work to get them into our hospital information system,” she said.
The majority of the hiring will be for Grand River Hospital, but there are many positions available at St. Mary’s that need filling as well.
