At this Halifax hospital patients are waiting a year to get an ultrasound

CITYnews halifax / By Mark Hodgins

A Nova Scotia union says staffing shortages are causing long wait times for ultrasounds in the province and creating challenging working conditions for ultrasonographers.

Data from the province shows most Nova Scotians are waiting 320 days on average for an ultrasound. The most significant wait times are at Halifax’s QEII hospital, where 90 per cent of patients are waiting 364 days.

“There’s an opportunity for serious health conditions to get worse instead of being detected in a timely manner,” Sandra Mullen, Nova Scotia Government Employees Union (NSGEU) president, told CityNews Halifax in an interview.

The union says some services are operating with half of the staff required to provide care, leading to burnout for workers.

“It’s very difficult on them, the fact that they are so overworked because of understaffing, all of those things lead to poor moral,” she said. “We need to be able to stop losing the folks that we have and to recruit folks to come to these positions.”

Mullen says pay is making recruitment difficult. While the most ill patients in Atlantic Canada are referred to the Halifax area for ultrasounds, workers are making up to nine dollars an hour less than their counterparts elsewhere in the country.

The NSGEU will be sitting down for concilliation talks with the province next week as bargaining for its health care members continues. According to Mullen there has been progress made at the table so far.

“It comes right down to the financial part of the agreement, and that’s where we can find ourselves at odds,” she said.

Conciliation is set for next Thursday.

95.7 NewsRadio has reached out to the province for comment.