Hundreds of people, including nurses and nursing students, gathered in Wascana Park on Wednesday to denounce the “ongoing” shortage of health workers in Saskatchewan.

The Saskatchewan Nurses Union, which created this event, believes this shortage is impacting the province’s entire health care system.

The rally is in response to inadequate measures to address the ongoing and worsening nursing shortagestated a spokesman for the union in a press release published on Tuesday.

The latter also denounces Problems with patient safety and a deterioration in the quality of care that worry health workers.

Wyatt Munson, an emergency room nurse at Regina General Hospital who is attending the rally, says he sees the impact of the nursing shortage every day.

He believes this shortage is having a negative impact, particularly on the quality of patient care across the province.

[Les patients] are tired of being placed in a hallway where they can’t see their nurses or call them if something happensexplains Wyatt Munson. Families are frustrated when they see their loved ones endure long waits.

He said the closure of urgent care centers in some rural areas of Saskatchewan has overwhelmed emergency rooms in larger centers such as Regina and Saskatoon.

Sometimes there are over 100 patients, people are screaming and screaming and everyone is running to take care of people […] This creates a very overwhelming work environment for many new employeescontinues Wyatt Munson.

He adds that the shortage also affects more experienced nurses as they have to keep the service running smoothly while also taking care to give new staff the advice they need.

Additionally, Wyatt Munson believes the province needs to focus on retaining existing staff rather than hiring new employees.

If we have a better retention strategy to retain experienced employees in our system, we can properly train and mentor new employees to make our workforce more competent.

With information from Stefani Langenegger