King Edward VII Memorial Hospital has a staffing crisis in the Emergency Department, hospital staff claim.

Other problems raised were a chronic sickness level and mass resignations among the general nursing staff.

One senior source said: "In Emergency, there used to be a full quota of staff of eight nurses working every shift. Now sometimes they are down to four, yet five on a shift is the minimum allowed.'' He added: "I worry about when there are two nurses on a tea break and one has gone off on a ambulance, leaving just one person to cope with everything that comes in.'' However, programme manager for critical care services Kareen Richards said: "We are recruiting, but we haven't been under the quota.

"Sometimes things happen when people are ill or we can't get agency staff, but we can get cover.

"I have not been concerned about staffing over the last month or over the next month. It's certainly not dangerous. We made contingency plans for people who were away.'' Hospitals Board chairman Raymonde Dill also denied there was a crisis in the Emergency Department and stressed that the hospital always offered the highest quality of care.

He said: "There are vacancies across the hospital in a number of positions which are there to be managed. It requires overtime from nurses to fill in for vacancies.'' He said nursing staff could be pulled off other wards in emergency situations.

"We had three planes being forced to land recently and each time we had the Emergency Department fully staffed by the time the first ambulance arrived from the airport.'' But another hospital insider, who did not wish to be named, said: "The Emergency Department is under extreme duress. There's a lot of expertise required. They don't have enough staff.

"They try to bring in other people as much as possible, but emergency nursing is a speciality. There's a big call for outside casuals.

Emergency room under-staffed, say employees "There's an acute sickness problem among the nurses. And there are a lot of resignations, people are fed up with being left in the lurch.

"People are resigning because they are stressed. There's a lot of work and not enough cooperation. There's a lack of morale. Like any other institution, it needs excellent team leadership to keep morale up. When people have to work in a way that's not normal for nurses they get so frustrated they resign.

"They might be required to do nurses' aide stuff, dealing with bed pans and doing bed baths and feeding patients.'' But Mr. Dill denied there were more resignations or nurses taking sick leave than usual.

He said: "It's a classic time for non-Bermudians to say they've had enough and go home at the end of the summer.

"It's a cyclical pattern which we are aware of but can do nothing about. As a result we try to manage vacancies but we are reliant on non-Bermudians. There has been no spate of resignations.'' Mr. Dill admitted sickness and overtime were linked.

"It's a vicious circle -- too much overtime makes more sickness which then requires more overtime in order to cover,'' he said. "The hospital does have an issue with overtime. It's difficult when you are reliant on non-Bermudian staff.

"It takes six to eight weeks to replace professional staff from abroad so you have to manage with overtime to fill in the gaps in recruitment.

"Sick time is unique here because our staff are exposed to more sickness than in other places of work.

"But when you take that into account we don't have disproportionate amount of sickness.

"We have a list of casuals in health care who can offer their skills on a casual basis and we use that pool to cover sickness and resignations.'' Bermuda Public Services Association general secretary Ed Ball, who represents the nurses, said: "We are right in the middle of negotiations for a new contract and one of the things under discussion is staffing levels.

"We will be looking at sickness levels too. If there are a slew of people off sick, then you need to find replacements.'' Mr. Dill said relying foreign nurses was a headache for the hospital.

He said: "Staff can leave with only two or four weeks notice but they can take three months to replace. To ask a nurse here to work three months' notice is unreasonable.'' The hospital has a list of nurses from overseas wishing to work in Bermuda.

But often when they are contacted they have moved on and are not interested any longer, he said.

Mr. Dill said the hospital was encouraging more Bermudians to go into nursing and was seeking to have Bermudian nurses working abroad return to the Island.

Raymonde Dill: Under control