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A retired Licensed Practical Nurse blames management for nurse burnout and job dissatisfaction at Kelowna General Hospital. 

Heather Honke worked at the hospital for 33 years and recently retired, leaving the job because of an unfriendly and disorganized environment.

Honke said across her career the hospital environment changed from a simple, more patient-focussed one with a lot of teamwork among staff, to one that complicates nursing with added paperwork, daily education requirements and too many patients, pulling nurses away from bedsides and causing burnout and job dissatisfaction.

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She wants an independent investigation be undertaken to mainstream the efficiency and inefficiencies of the health care system.

“When I started the paperwork was one flow sheet you used to record vital signs, one sheet to tick off your patient’s activities and a place for notes,” she said. “The paperwork has tripled and then you have to add it into the computer. Patients want... you to have time with them, and your primary job is to sit there and hold their hand. That’s nursing.”

She said the government requires documentation tools like paperwork to measure funding to the health care system and the workload trickles down to the nurse, taking them away from direct patient care delivery.

“Management is accepting of all this paperwork nurses need to do in order to document how great the hospital is doing, at the cost of supporting patients, she said. “Patients are not just logs you roll in a bed, they shouldn’t have to wait."

“It once was that the management looked after paperwork and budget concerns, and protected the nurse from increasing paperwork,” she said. “There used to be managers with offices on the floor with a thumb on the pulse of what was going on. They protected nurses, got them equipment and did not tolerate nursing shortages.”

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She said the hospital hires educators for departments to support nurses for learning purposes, but this often means more work for the nurses.  

“These are glorified policy pushers sitting in management meetings, sending out education ILearns for nurses to do as compulsory on everything from First Nation cultures, gender roles, equipment, safety policy changes etc. It is a lot of unnecessary work to do when they are already running to keep up.”

Honke regularly saw staffing shortages at the hospital toward the end of her career, and nurses running to keep up. 

“Management is not addressing the workload issues because it is all about funding, they don’t care,” she said. “The nurses won’t speak about it. If a nurse speaks out, the policy by facility standard is “that you are making yourself the official spokesperson of that facility and can be relieved of your duties by being fired.”

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Honke said the registered nursing program is a four year program where it initially took two-and-a-half years to complete. She said four years is not necessary and causes further delays in staffing. 

“The only reason the program expanded to four years for a registered nurse was to groom nurses for management positions,” she said. “Not all nurses can be managers. You don’t need four years of nursing school and a mountain of debt to be a bedside nurse.”

Honke sent letters of concern to the provincial government but has not heard back yet. She is hoping other retired nurses will participate to assist in putting the "precious resource of nursing" back on track.

“Nursing is a culture that has been tampered with by ideologies of health care system leaders,” she said. “There needs to be some serious investigation into the delivery of service and more respect provided to the nurse who has spent one to two to four years of education to obtain a license to practise.”

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