Media Statement: Changes to Hamilton Health Sciences operating room staffing

The Ontario Nurses’ Association (ONA) stands by its statements regarding the changes to Hamilton Health Sciences operating room staffing.

The hospital’s own statement around these changes is itself misleading.

In fact, Operating Room Assistants (ORAs) – unregulated workers with a 10-week course – are currently filling roles that nurses fill. They are working in the sterile field in the scrub nurse role, directly assisting the surgeon. They hand the surgeon instruments and equipment, handle medications, specimens and implants, prepare the skin and retract skin during surgery. They maintain the sterile field. There are strict national guidelines around the work of a scrub nurse which clearly state that these tasks are to be performed only by a nurse who is a regulated health-care professional, licensed by the College of Nurses of Ontario.

Hamilton Health Sciences had staffed its ORs with one Operating Room Assistant, one scrub nurse and two circulating nurses (who are RNs). The hospital now states that it has two nurses in the OR – a loss of one nurse – working in the OR for orthopedic, gynecology, plastic, urology, ENT, dental and general surgeries.

ONA continues to contend that there is a need for more staff of all categories in Ontario hospitals. In the OR, however, it is vital that professional standards around who is qualified to perform each role be strictly adhered to. Nurses are highly educated, highly regulated professionals. ORAs are unregulated workers who have completed a 10-week course. The Operating Room Nurses Association of Canada (ORNAC) standards are unequivocable: the scrub nurse role must be performed by a nurse.

It is inappropriate and unsafe to have unregulated workers perform tasks that regulated nurses are mandated to perform.

-30-