Nurses are feeling the brunt of staffing shortages made worse by the Omicron outbreak.

President of the Registered Nurses Union, Yvette Coffey, says nurses were already struggling with staffing shortages before the pandemic began two years ago, and now with well over 1000 health care workers isolating, the situation has only gotten worse.

Coffey says the numbers released by Public Health on hospitalizations due to COVID can be a bit misleading because some patients already in hospital are now testing positive for the virus.

Coffey says Omicron is affecting the system completely differently from previous variants.

She says nurses are being deployed to help with swabbing and vaccine and booster clinics.