(Photo by Millar Hill)
(Photo by Millar Hill)
Chatham

CKHA in hiring mode

The Chatham-Kent Health Alliance is in hiring mode right now and hospital officials are hoping that recruiting nursing students will help fill up some of the available spaces.

According to CKHA Vice President, Transformation and Chief Nursing Executive Meredith Whitehead, the hospital is currently sitting at an 8.2 per cent employment vacancy rate.

Whitehead said that rate is a little bit higher than the "normal" rate the organization has seen over the past few months, which has fluctuated from 6.2 up to 8.4.

CKHA CEO and President Lori Marshall added that there are several different factors and variables to consider when it comes to the employment vacancy rate.

"One of the things to remember with that vacancy rate is we've also recently added a number of positions to the organization," she explained. "While we're in the recruitment of those positions, that's added to our vacancy rate. Adding things like the withdrawal management program, adding some additional positions to our resource team, our float team, and some of those sorts of things have added some new positions that we would be out advertising. Some of those positions would also be the normal turnover positions. Definitely, you would see this across all of the health care [sector], everyone is recruiting."

Whitehead said the hospital is looking to fill a variety of roles in different departments and added that no one area within the organization is looking for more employees than another.

"We do have space in some of our specialty areas...ICU and surgical nurses," Whitehead explained. "I don't think there is anyone that's looking for more than the other but that's our current state at the moment."

The CKHA is also still working on its new withdrawal management unit. Marshall said bed construction is underway right now. Due to some supplier delays, the unit will likely be completed in July instead of the end of June. Once completed, more roles will need to be filled within the department.

According to Whitehead, there is some positive news on the hiring front.

Whitehead said the organization has been able to recruit a large percentage of pre-grad nursing students into becoming full-time employees with the CKHA.

She said most of them are just waiting to write their exams and the current vacancy rate takes into account the incoming grads.

"For us, that is fantastic statistics," she said. "We know that it's always a challenge when nurses have a lot of choices. We are delighted that 88 per cent of our pre grad nursing students have chosen to come on board with CKHA."

Additionally, Marshall said the hospital has brought on an additional 32 students through the Extern Program over the past two months, for a total of 65.

The Extern Program reimburses selected Ontario hospitals for the cost of employing externs and extern mentors/coordinators to address COVID-19-related health human resources challenges.

Just like the grad students, Marshall is hopeful they will choose CKHA in the long term.

"I know from what I hear throughout the organization, that their involvement in helping us deliver care has been so welcome throughout this time period," said Marshall. "The other piece is that we're hopeful that having brought these students into different roles at CKHA helps them to see what their future career might look like here."

The hospital also recently announced it's welcomed Naty Ramirez into the new role of executive lead, equity, diversity, and inclusion

As the EDI executive lead, Ramirez will help manage CKHA initiatives that drive the organization's strategic direction. She'll be responsible for providing leadership and administrative oversight for researching, developing, implementing and maintaining a range of practices for supporting a diverse and inclusive climate.

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