One health board's attempts to ease a shortage in pharmacists could wind up creating new problems in Newfoundland and Labrador's health care system, according to the group that bargains on behalf of pharmacists.

The Eastern Health regional authority announced Friday it would pay an extra $12,000 to pharmacists who in return agree to not leave their jobs. 

Sharon King is worried that a pay bump at Newfoundland and Labrador's largest health board will hurt smaller boards.
(CBC)

Sharon King, the executive director of the Association of Allied Health Professionals, said the effort would help prevent hospital-based pharmacists from resigning — but could create a drain for other regional boards.

"I would think those boards would probably be more concerned now, with Eastern Health addressing the problem, because they're at a high risk of losing their pharmacists to the Eastern board," King said.

Eastern Health, which manages institutions on the Avalon, Bonavista and Burin peninsulas, is by far the largest health care board in the province.

It announced a "market differential allowance" to bring remuneration for its hospital-based pharmacists closer to the average in Atlantic Canada, after the Newfoundland and Labrador government turned down pharmacists' claims for greater pay.

Chief executive officer George Tilley said the board is hoping the temporary bonus would be enough to halt resignations at the board, where about 20 per cent of pharmacy positions have been vacant. 

Eastern Health CEO George Tilley says the board had no choice but to make a unilateral move to halt pharmacists' resignations.
(CBC)

"In fact, [we] hope that some who have already indicated their interest in moving on may change their minds," Tilley said.

"Secondly, we're going to step up our activities on the recruitment side to see if there are ways of inciting people who may be new graduates from the pharmacy program or people who may be working in others sectors to pursue pharmacy in a hospital environment."

Pharmacists, who conducted a three-week work slowdown in the fall to draw attention to their working conditions, have said recruitment has been such a problem that postings for some vacancies do not draw a single application.

Patient care at risk, pharmacists claim

Because of the vacancies, hospital pharmacists have had to do forced overtime, and have warned that patient care may be put at risk because of heavy workloads.

"It's a good start, absolutely," Mike LeBlanc, a pharmacist in St. John's, told CBC News Monday.

'If this was offered six months ago, when the crisis was really starting to get difficult … I would never even have been looking elsewhere.- Pharmacist Mike LeBlanc

"[But] we didn't really want Eastern Health to have to go down this road. We wanted the government to acknowledge the issue and address it provincially, because now we're potentially going to see problems elsewhere."

LeBlanc said he has been one of the pharmacists who has been considering leaving his job.

"It will make me think a little bit longer about my decision," he said. "If this was offered six months ago, when the crisis was really starting to get difficult … I would never even have been looking elsewhere."

King said the $1-million package "brings us two-thirds of the way there" in terms of reaching Atlantic parity.

In the meantime, she said, the association will meet with officials of other regional health boards to lobby for an increase in pay.

She said in order to resolve a long-term shortage of workers in hospital pharmacies, the provincial government must become involved.