Alberta LPN

The wages are available through any employment ad. Try looking at Capital Health's website for the latest union rate. Your total hours of nursing employment determine where you are on the pay scale.

There are good places and bad and you'll figure out which are yours during your clinicals.

Norquest is notorious for being disorganized. Just count to ten and breathe. Nearly every LPN in Edmonton was trained there and it's not as bad as people tell you.

Good Luck.

I took my LPN thru Norquest in Edmonton about 5 years ago. I did all the course work via distance and travelled and stayed in Edmonton for clinicals. I found the clinicals were excellent and I couldnt have received better exposure. I received a job before I was finsihed the course.

Great experience, great instructors!

Good luck

So, how is school going? How is the LTC clinicals going?

Hey puglover,
I went to Norquest College. I graduated in April, 2008. I had a job before I was done school, and then got another job within a month after that job as that one was only casual. I currently work at an inner-city clinic downtown. We mainly serve the homeless and drug users. Its a fabulous place to work, and it is so much more refreshing than the hospital scene was. I get around 20 an hour I believe. As far as Norquest went, I actually didn't find I got alot out of that school.

I posted LPN wage and differential information from the recently negotiated AUPE collective agreement (pending ratification in August) here:http://allnurses.com/forums/f224/lpn...ml#post2952977 earlier today. That should clear up the pay question.

The proposed settlement is causing a huge amount of dissention within the nurses of Capital Health. Many feel that the proposed wages are tied too closely to those of a NA. That the LPNs are not being recognized as professional nurses (they among the few licensed professionals within the bargaining unit).

While the rates may look good on paper, remember UNE's start at over $23/hour currently. This is a direct slap in the face to the LPNs working along side them on the floor. A UNE has been 2-4 patients (depending on their year of education) and works pretty much to the LPN scope of practice. A fresh new grad LPN deserves to make as much a UNE and remember she has a full patient load, her own meds, etc.

We also don't regain the double time for single slash days that was taken away under the last contract (we were told that the RNs and RPNs were going to lose it as well and that NEVER happened). We don't get a nice bonus like the RNs did when they signed their contract, we get 10% as do other members within the bargaining unit.

People remember what happened in Manitoba when the LPNs bargained with UNM. They got the wages up there for the LPNs and then laid them off. So people are being "advised" to settle for what has been offered. Then we are reminded that the LPNs are very small voice in a bargaining unit made up of 80,000 members across the province. There are under 6,000 currently licensed LPNs ACROSS the province.

So, it looks like we are going to get railroaded into accepting this contract whether we agree with it or not.

While I'm not the biggest fan of Norquest and it's structure and instructors, I really have to question your last sentence.

Do you really feel that you would be able to do your job without the education you received there? Would you have been able to walk in off the street and write CPNRE???

Nursing school wasn't a great experience for many of us but it got us where we are today.

Capital Health is recruiting 600 nurses to work as LPN from the Philippines. What can you say about this?