Nurse shortage causing 'scary' delays for pediatric diabetes patients in Manitoba: advocacy group

Children with Type 1 diabetes are beingimpacted by Manitoba's nursing shortage as the province's only pediatric diabetes clinic is cancelling appointments.

TheManitoba Nurses Union said many nurses in the clinic, as well as nurse educators at Health Sciences Centre in Winnipeg, have been reassignedto other areas because of a nursing shortage.

Health Sciences Centre is where the Diabetes Education Resource for Children and Adolescents (DER-CA) is located.

"It affects people in really big ways.It's really scary," saidTrevor Kirczenow, founder of the advocacy group Emergency Diabetes Support for Manitobans.

Insulinis a hormone, "but it's also a pretty dangerous medication," he said."If you give too much of it, your child could die. If you give too little of it, your child could die."

Nurses who work in clinics but previously worked in areas where they're nowshort-staffed have been reassigned back to those areas to provide support,said MNU presidentDarlene Jackson.

"This is reallyindicative of how short we are in health care right now, and what this nursing shortage is doing."

It has forced parents into a stressful position where they are second-guessing how to care for their children, she said.

Shared Health, which co-ordinates health care in Manitoba, said 70 appointments have been impacted since last month due tostaffing issues at theclinic.

A spokesperson said a nurse from the clinic was movedin August to HSC Children's Hospital,which has seen a rise in patients in recent months while experiencing its own staffing issues. A second staff member at the clinic later left their position, and a third is on a leave of absence.

The clinic has anew staff member scheduled to start next month, the spokesperson said, and the clinic'smedical team "has assisted with teaching to minimize the impact to patients and families as much as possible."

Cancelled appointments will be rescheduled, Shared Health says, butfamilies can access care through their family doctors in the meantime.

Having regular meetings with nurses about changes in insulin dosages and a child's lifestyle is extremely important, especially for families who have never dealt with diabetes before, saidKirczenow, whose 11-year-old son is the only person in his family to experience it.

People new to dealing with the disease can require information abouthow much insulin to give a child when they eat certain things,or scramble to understandwhy a kid'sblood sugar is high or low andwhat to do next, he said.

"It's very serious and the amount that you need to give can change because of activity [the child becomes involved in], orit could change because of a growth spurt and growth hormones. So there there's a lot of variables."

Type 1 diabetesis a genetic condition that often shows up early in life, so it ismost common in children. Type 2 is mainly lifestyle-related and develops over time.

Shannon Naldrett, whose 14-year-old daughter was diagnosed with diabetes two years ago, said it was difficult enough during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic when most meetings were virtual. To now have them outright cancelled or delayed for months ishard to take, she said.

They were supposed to have an appointment in May but that was cancelled and moved to November. Appointments should be every three months, said Naldrett.

"We were quite upset....To pull services from youthand and diabetes management didn't really seem family-centred, and it seemedunsafe," she said.

"In the diabetic world, [six months]a really long time to go with just your parents kind of managing things and being an endocrinologist and trying to have to figure [it] out."

Naldrettsaid her family is fortunate to be able to afford continuous glucose monitors and insulin pumps without it being a financial burden, but that's not the case for many others.

Those devices still require education and support from medical professionals but without them, and goingsix months without an appointment, it would be much more challenging and worrisome, she said.

"The pandemic has really given us a new lens on how terrible our health care is in a lot of situations," Naldrettsaid.

"We're in troubleif we're pulling nurses from something like managing kids in the diabetic community.It's frustrating for parents and people who are really feeling this."

The scenario currently facing nurses is also causing anxiety, Jackson said,not only because they are being moved tojobs for which they might not have the most up-to-date skills, but also because they're worried about thepatients they've had to leave behind.

"What we're seeing is nurses being shuffled around like pawns on a chess board," she said. "And part of the domino effect is how are we ever going to catch up with all of these appointments that are being cancelled?"

Nurse shortage causing 'scary' delays for pediatric diabetes patients in Manitoba

2 years ago

Duration 2:27

Children with Type 1 diabetes are being impacted by Manitoba's nursing shortage as the province's only pediatric diabetes clinic is cancelling appointments.