Attention ,SEC assessment 2010 Vancouver

Pediatric Critical Care Columnist · Feb 2, 2010

first of all, canada doesn't have states. we have provinces. secondly, sec is not and never was a method of discouraging internationally educated rns from coming to work in canada. its only purpose has always been to ensure that the iens' educational preparation and their skills sets are equivalent to those of canadian-educated newly graduated nurses. it was quickly discovered that there were a lot of nurses educated outside of canada whose preparation was not adequate for the work canadian rns are expected to perform. so the sec was developed.

i believe i've been saying for about three months that bc was not hiring at the pace they were a year ago. nobody believed me. alberta stopped hiring externally nearly a year ago. not just iens but anybody who didn't already have a position with alberta health services became ineligible for hire when dr duckett's "vacancy management programme" began. nobody believed that either. i advised people several times not to take anything for granted when planning to move to canada; that advice was ignored.

your friends who applied to alberta did not have a job unless they had a letter from alberta health services in their possession that outlined the position they'd been hired for, the name of the unit manager and a contact person, the step on the salary scale where they were to be placed, the union local they would be affiliated with, the date and location they were to appear for orientation and the length of their probationary period. if they didn't have that, then they didn't really have a job. if they did have such a letter they had a legally binding contract with ahs and would be here working by now. except that ahs suspended offshore recruiting about a year ago and will not be engaging in it again for the foreseeable future. please don't see racism behind every bush.

moving to the international forum because this is not a topic for the average nurse working in canada who probably doesn't even know what sec is.

5cats · Feb 3, 2010

Plus every IEN had to take SEC if there were not convinced that the education is equal to the canadian one, not only filipinos. Immigration to another country is never cheap.

5cats

angel Ann · Feb 3, 2010

hi janfrn, thanks for your reply.But sorry,I am not implying racism here.And I have not read about your replies about this topic so I am not aware about Vancouver's ongoing recruitment issues from 2 years ago.The information I got is based in real and current experience.Its not true that Vancouver has stopped hiring 2 or 3 years ago because my friends have left 2008 and 2009 for a secured job.They were both in Vancouver now and we do have the same employer.We almost have the same credentials and university nursing curriculum.They were just lucky as they did not have the SEC assessment requirement or even asked for a possible SEC assessment as requirement for those year.The same employer was hiring until 2009.It was just unfortunate for me to apply later after them.As far as I am aware, they are doing really well in the hospital and for the short period of time,they were asked to carry out the role of a nurse in charge.So who will really say that they do need a SEC assessment?.If SEC assessment started before 2008 and the hiring has stopped or was going to stop then my employer or recruiter could have told me before that,but they have only told me later last year and I was willing to take this assessment.But now they have only wasted my time hoping because they have already told me that they are not recruiting IENs anymore,Excellent!.Anyway,could you tell me when this SEC assessment was started in BC?.I know it was the original idea of the province of Alberta, I should say.:)Thanks

Fiona59 · Feb 3, 2010

Jan did NOT say that BC stopped overseas recruiting 2-3 years ago. Please go back and read her post carefully.

BC started slowing down it's hiring in the last six months.

Just because your friends are doing well does not mean that every IEN has had a successful start to their nursing career. Over the last couple of years the Canadian and Australian forums were flooded by posters wanting advice on migrating and exclaiming how well qualified as nurses they were. Yet, these same posters rarely return to the board once they start working. Only one returned and said that nursing in Canada was far more complicated and hard than they had been led to believe (despite Canadian nurses telling them the facts). SEC has grown out the evidence that a BScN from many countries (even from different unis in the same country) are not equal.

The provincial governments of Canada need to ensure safe, qualified staff to care for their taxpayers.

It's also time for the rest of the world to stop assuming that Canada, the US, Australia, and NZ can absorb an unlimited supply of nursing graduates with little or no real work experience.

angel Ann · Feb 3, 2010

Fiona,oh sorry I'm not reading carefully,am I? :lol2: .Like I said,I am not against the SEC,.I am not saying that my friends and I dont need the SEC.It is true that everyone should really undergo SEC,to prove that we can nurse in a canadian way.I have been ready to do this myself,I got a budget etc.But I was just dissapointed that things just turned to nothing now.They did slow the hiring, did you say 3 months ago?.that was very quick because this month,they have stopped the hiring.My post mainly intends to warn anyone struggling financially for the SEC.Its a good idea to confirm the job or the current hiring from their recruiter or employer first before doing so ,as BC cannot guarantee a secured job now for IENs even after passing the SEC.But I don't discourage all IENs to keep hoping. :nurse: Good luck

kempo · Feb 3, 2010

Jan did NOT say that BC stopped overseas recruiting 2-3 years ago. Please go back and read her post carefully.
BC started slowing down it's hiring in the last six months.
Just because your friends are doing well does not mean that every IEN has had a successful start to their nursing career. Over the last couple of years the Canadian and Australian forums were flooded by posters wanting advice on migrating and exclaiming how well qualified as nurses they were. Yet, these same posters rarely return to the board once they start working. Only one returned and said that nursing in Canada was far more complicated and hard than they had been led to believe (despite Canadian nurses telling them the facts). SEC has grown out the evidence that a BScN from many countries (even from different unis in the same country) are not equal.
The provincial governments of Canada need to ensure safe, qualified staff to care for their taxpayers.
It's also time for the rest of the world to stop assuming that Canada, the US, Australia, and NZ can absorb an unlimited supply of nursing graduates with little or no real work experience.

Oh, the rest of the world never assumed that Canada,etc will absorb foreign nursing graduates. You must be imagining things and I understand how you feel.

Pediatric Critical Care Columnist · Feb 3, 2010

hi janfrn, I have not read about your replies about this topic so I am not aware about Vancouver's ongoing recruitment issues.

This is a big part of the problem. People don't read what's already posted. They simply start complaining about something that has already been discussed to death.

They were just lucky as they did not have the SEC assessment requirement or even asked for a possible SEC assessment as requirement for those year.The same employer was hiring until 2009.It was just unfortunate for me to apply later after them.

Recruiting, as has been pointed out, began to slow in the apring of 2009 and was all but suspended in the late summer. SEC assessments are not a universal phenomenon as has been amply explained in the SEC sticky FAQ - Substantially Equivalent Competence (SEC) Assessments and in the IEN sticky ***Internationally Educated Nurses: VERY IMPORTANT - READ THIS FIRST*** that you have not read. To summarize, SECs are required when the college of nursing cannot determine from the submitted paperwork whether the applicant's education meets local standards. If your friends' documentation was easy to understand and contained all the information the college was looking for and yours didn't, that explains why you have to do one and they didn't.

So who will really say that they do need a SEC assessment?

The College of Registered Nurses of British Columbia, that's who. Their mandate is to protect the people of BC from unskilled nursing practice.

If SEC assessment started before 2008 and the hiring has stopped or was going to stop then my employer or recruiter could have told me before that,but they have only told me later last year and I was willing to take this assessment.But now they have only wasted my time hoping because they have already told me that they are not recruiting IENs anymore,Excellent!.Anyway,could you tell me when this SEC assessment was started in BC?.I know it was the original idea of the province of Alberta, I should say.:)Thanks

SEC has been in place in BC since at least April of 2009 and probably earlier. The CRNBC website has numerous dated documents that reflect the changes to their registration process for IENs. There's a world of difference between the human resources department of a hospital and a recruiter. A recruiter will have been given instruction to attend job fairs to entice people to come and work for the hospital but they have no authority to hire anyone. They also are not likely to be kept up to date on actual job vacancies. That is the job of the human resources department. They're the ones who issue the letters I referred to in my first post to this thread.

Let's also not forget the unbelievable length of time it takes for documentation to be obtained and processed when someone from another country applies for a job anywhere here. Trust me when I tell you that most employers who have vacancies want to fill them as soon as humanly possible... not a year from now. When you started your process there were vacancies. By the time your paperwork caught up there weren't. Plain and simple.

They did slow the hiring, did you say 3 months ago?.that was very quick because this month,they have stopped the hiring.My post mainly intends to warn anyone struggling financially for the SEC.Its a good idea to confirm the job or the current hiring from their recruiter or employer first before doing so ,as BC cannot guarantee a secured job now for IENs even after passing the SEC.But I don't discourage all IENs to keep hoping. Good luck

Hiring began to slow in the early summer. There are posts on the Canadian forum that reflect that. BC was warning that layoffs might be coming as early as June. There are several posts from September discussing how BC wasn't hiring right here in the International forum.

Oh, the rest of the world never assumed that Canada,etc will absorb foreign nursing graduates. You must be imagining things and I understand how you feel.

Well, it sure seems to us that the world thinks that Canada is one of the lands of milk and honey when the sheer number of IENs wanting work in Canada on this board alone sits in the hundreds. Just have a look at the topics on this forum.

angel Ann · Feb 3, 2010

Jan did NOT say that BC stopped overseas recruiting 2-3 years ago. Please go back and read her post carefully.
BC started slowing down it's hiring in the last six months.
Just because your friends are doing well does not mean that every IEN has had a successful start to their nursing career. Over the last couple of years the Canadian and Australian forums were flooded by posters wanting advice on migrating and exclaiming how well qualified as nurses they were. Yet, these same posters rarely return to the board once they start working. Only one returned and said that nursing in Canada was far more complicated and hard than they had been led to believe (despite Canadian nurses telling them the facts). SEC has grown out the evidence that a BScN from many countries (even from different unis in the same country) are not equal.
The provincial governments of Canada need to ensure safe, qualified staff to care for their taxpayers.
It's also time for the rest of the world to stop assuming that Canada, the US, Australia, and NZ can absorb an unlimited supply of nursing graduates with little or no real work experience.

Well, I just dont get the idea why the above countries you have mentioned have been hiring unlimited supply of nursing graduates or IEN's with no experience at all.That's a kind of joke.Isnt it that IENs now before applying have got proofs of their nursing credentials,work experience and english language proficiency?

5cats · Feb 3, 2010

When you are desperate you do a lot of things that you normally wouldn't do, the wake up call came, and SEC is part of that wake up call. But unfortunatley we are stuck with the guys who have been hired allready and believe me the expierence is not good, it takes way to much time to orientate, up to a year and longer plus freeing extra staff, putting them into courses and and....so I kinda doubt this massive recruitment will happen again, but who knows and I'm actually very surprised that Manitoba is taking applicants from Alberta after the experience they had, but as I say when you are desperate......

5cats

Fiona59 · Feb 3, 2010

Oh, the rest of the world never assumed that Canada,etc will absorb foreign nursing graduates. You must be imagining things and I understand how you feel.

Can you tell me what I'm imagining? How do you understand how I feel?

You don't know "me". Only what you read into a typed statement. I have worked in two provinces. I know what I see, what I hear from my co-workers, my patients, and from the IENs who have been hired by my health region.

When countries produce more nurses than they can hope to absorb within their own system there is a problem. Each year we hear from graduates that have no hope of employment in their homeland asking where it is "easy", "fast", "cheap" to get a license either in the US, Canada, NZ, or Oz.

canman · Feb 7, 2010

I am new to these forums, so I will admit, I haven't read the hundreds of pages that come up when I do a "SEC" search on this site. If my questions/comments have be discussed to death, I'm sorry.

1) My understanding re SEC for Philippine trained nurses is that a major factor that is looked at is total years of schooling. Here they have 6 yrs elementary, and 4 yrs high school before taking the 4 yr BSN degree. However, students start school at 8:00 am, and end at 5:00 pm, with a lunch break at noon. So if they were to go to school for 15 years, going 3 mornings a week, would this be better schooling than that in Canada as judged by the nursing council?

Some comments on this :

I recently met a couple who moved back to PI from the US. They have 2 school aged children. I asked them if they were not worried about their children's education here. They said that it is much better here than what they would get back in the US.

My sister-in-law's children were born in Canada, but spent some time here and received several years of schooling here. When they returned to Canada, they were tested and found to be advanced compared to the local kids, so each of them was put ahead one grade.

2) My second point -

Some of the posts here emphasize that the SEC assessment is to ensure that IENs are equivalent to new Canadian graduates. Are you implying that all Canadian grads are automatically good nurses? If 100 new nurses from Vancouver Island, and 100 from Prince Edward Island, for example, were given the tests, would they be that much better than IENs? Before the SEC program was put in place, was it tested using Canadian grads?

I don't have a problem with the SEC process being used, but if it isn't used for all nurses seeking registration, isn't that discrimination? If it is such a good indicator of nursing competency, why not make it a requirement.