Whitehorse General Hospital staff are experiencing poor working conditions that are unprecedented, according to the president of the Yukon Employees’ Union (YEU).

“It’s not a good situation; it’s the worst I’ve seen in over 20 years of being here, so it’s very concerning,” Steve Geick told the Star Monday.

“As a union, we go to bat for our members, but my concern is that this is potentially affecting the health of all Yukoners.”

Last week, the union said Monday, four nurses resigned in one 12-hour period, citing chronic understaffing leading to stressful shifts and unmanageable workloads.

The Whitehorse General Hospital is managed by the Yukon Hospital Corp., an agency that operates with funding from the territorial government. It’s disputing the union’s version of events.

Geick told the Star the union has been fighting the hospital corporation over workload and staffing for at least six years, through the last two rounds of negotiations.

“We can talk about workload as long as it doesn’t involve hiring more staff,” Geick said.

“They say they don’t have the money to do it.”

In most hospitals across the country, nurses are tasked with caring for four to six patients per shift. In Whitehorse, nurses treat up to eight patients per shift.

“If you have eight patients to look after and one of them is in some sort of condition that requires vital signs to be done every 15 minutes, you’ve got to do your normal patient load and be constantly changing your PPE,” Geick said.

The heavy workload puts immense pressure on health care staff, Geick said.

“We’ve been very lucky up here with COVID, but if there was ever an outbreak here, right now, I don’t know what would happen.”

Geick said that hospital staff have been afraid to file incident reports on workload or report those concerns to their manager.

“What’s happening now is that if you complain about your workload, you get a letter of expectation saying, ‘Here’s some work you need to do on time management,’” Geick said.

NDP MLA Liz Hanson questioned the government on the union’s statements in the legislature on Monday.

Currie Dixon, the leader of the Yukon Party, told reporters Monday the issue lies in lack of funding to the hospital corporation.

“Having the limited resources that they do forces them to make very challenging decisions,” Dixon said.

“Our biggest concern is that this is a systemic problem that begins with the underfunding of the hospital corp.”

Kate White, the leader of the NDP, said she thinks the mass quit at the hospital was “a long time coming” after increased staffing cuts in recent history.

“It just means people are overworked, they’re exhausted, they’re stressed out, they’re anxious,” White said.

The hospital has recently seen a change to the staffing model that sees more health care assistants on staff under the supervision of nurses, White explained.

“It does cost less, but I think in the ideal world, you would have conversations with the professionals,” White said.

“They would say that adding the assistants would be helpful, but not when taking away a nursing position.”

White called the jump in patients per nurse “very frightening” and likely leads to nurses feeling they’re unable to provide a high level of care to each patient.

“That’s got to be heart-wrenching,” White said.

Premier Sandy Silver said Monday that issues at the hospital have likely been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We know that we have an awful lot of support staff, professionals that have gone on to different substantives to help us in the pandemic,” Silver said.

“It’s a stressful time, it really is.”

Silver denied that the hospital corporation is underfunded, and said funds were allocated accordingly after corporation staff appeared as witnesses in the legislative assembly.

“Every organization would always love to have more money, but they are well within the means,” Silver said.

The corporation, meanwhile, issued a release today denying that the four hospital staffers quit in one day.

“The facts and figures they offered are misleading and only tell part of the story,” the release stated.

“Nothing the union leadership offered in their statement reflects the complexities of health care recruitment or any basic understanding of staffing a hospital – especially during a pandemic.”

The corporation said the Yukon’s hospitals experience ongoing recruiting challenges that are par for the course in the North.

Those challenges are paired with the need for more staffing during COVID-19, due in part to the increased number of staff absences due to illness.

The corporation notes that it hired 77 people this year, and 15 of those were added to the Whitehorse hospital nursing team this month.

“YEU has not engaged us on an ongoing basis to work collaboratively on any of the issues they raised in their statement,” the corporation said.

“YEU’s timing, and the public manner in which they chose to proceed, seems odd and highly cynical given we are about to resume collective bargaining in a couple days.”