BREAKING NEWS from globeandmail.com, Tuesday, June 18, 2002
Nurses getting harder to find
By DARREN YOURK
Globe and Mail Update
Registered nurses in Canada are a shrinking and aging work force, a new report released Tuesday by the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) says.
According to the report, there was a modest increase of 1.2 per cent in the number of registered nurses in Canada over the past five years, but that did not keep pace with population growth.
As a result, there are fewer nurses per capita, with 74.3 employed in nursing for every 10,000 Canadians in 2001 compared with 76.0 in 1997.
"While these ratios provide a good foundation for comparison, they don't tell the whole story," said Francine Anne Roy, nursing consultant at CIHI. "Factors such as population health needs, accessibility to medical services, the distribution and mix of health professionals, and different models of health-care delivery will all affect how many registered nurses are required in a community."
The report says the nursing work force is also getting older. In 2001, for the first time, the average age of every provincial or territorial nurse work force was 40 or older, with a national average of 43.7 years.
The eldest work forces in 2001 were British Columbia (44.8 years), Ontario (44.3 years), Prince Edward Island (44.1 years) and Saskatchewan (44.1 years). On average, the youngest work force was in Newfoundland and Labrador, at 40.1 years.
"Today's report highlights the continued imbalance between the numbers of nurses over 40 compared to new graduates," said Linda O'Brien-Pallas, a CIHI adviser. "As many nurses in this country leave nursing before the age of 65 due to the physical demands of the job and concerns about high workload, work environments need to be structured to retain all nurses and to attract new nurses."
The report shows that full-time employment rates for nurses are at their highest levels in more than five years.
In 2001, 53.2 per cent of registered nurses were employed full-time in nursing in Canada, compared with 51.9 per cent in 2000 and 49.8 per cent in 1997. More than half of new nursing graduates were employed on a casual basis in 1997, but by 2001 this proportion had declined to one-quarter of new graduates.
Registered nurses with casual employment do not have a fixed number of hours per pay period.
Registered nurses represent the largest group of regulated health professionals in Canada. In 2001, there were 231,512 registered nurses in Canada.
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This was forwarded to me: And I was wondering what you'll thought about it...
I have tons of questions around the article myself.
Why are the universitys uping the marks for students???
Why did the Gov. suddenly change the nursing program to only BScN and the RPN/LPN to a two year course???
Are we strangling ourselves with our desire to advance health care????
And making it impossible for an average person to go to university for the BScN - even though they are completly quilified to do the previous courses in nurseing....
Ur thoughts and opinions are appreciated...
