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OTTAWA — Canada is in danger of losing huge numbers of nurses to other countries as provincial governments struggle to slash deficits by freezing or cutting their jobs, nursing advocates say.
“We are very concerned that nurses are actually going to the (United) States,” said Linda Haslam-Stroud, president of the Ontario Nurses Association. “The States have many recruiters up here on a monthly basis.”
Health experts warn Canada could face a repeat of the 1990s, when health-care cuts by the provinces drove as many as 27,000 nurses to the U.S. alone to look for work. “The ’90s were quite bleak,” said Patrick O’Byrne, assistant professor in the faculty of health sciences’ school of nursing at the University of Ottawa.
On the one hand, it’s a problem of globalization, says Gyslaine Desrosiers, president of the Quebec Order of Nurses. “There are global shortages of nurses and all countries are competing for them.”
QMI Agency revealed this week that up to 250 Quebec nurses are working in a single university hospital in Lausanne, Switzerland.
And worsening the outflow, nurses are a target of job freezes in some provinces as governments struggle with deficits.
It’s difficult to know how many nurses are currently leaving the country to find work, says the Canadian Nurses Association, which predicts a severe nursing shortage even without estimating the outflow.
Meanwhile, American recruiters from Texas, California and other states dangle signing bonuses, more education, housing stipends and other incentives in front of Canadian nurses.
It’s not that provinces don’t want to retain this workforce. In Alberta, the last collective agreement offered incentives such as a shift to less physically demanding work for older nurses, extra perks for weekend workers, and an option for seasonal work for “snowbird” nurses who spend part of their year in warmer climates, according to Bev Dick, first vice-president of the United Nurses of Alberta.
But, battling a health-spending deficit, the province has also frozen up to 1,400 positions, she said.
British Columbia has also tightened spending. Still, O’Byrne says, it has tried to retain nurses, for instance by allowing those in emergency rooms to order X-rays and tests, using their full scope of skills. In an e-mailed statement, the ministry of health services said the province has invested $190 million since 2001 to “educate, recruit and retain” nurses — including continuing education.
Ontario promises full-time work for up to seven and half months to new graduates, and offers older nurses less physically demanding duties. The government says it invested in 900 new nursing jobs in 2009-10.
Haslam-Stroud, however, says hospitals are ditching nursing jobs as they try to balance their budgets.
In Quebec, Desrosiers said the government is “definitely not” doing enough to retain nurses. Downsizing and cutbacks have made conditions worse and worse, she said. “The new generation will not accept this.”
christina.spencer@sunmedia.ca
Why Canadian nurses go abroad: