Canadian licensing system overwhelmed by foreign nurse applicants

5cats · Apr 5, 2009

I guess it's quality rather than quantity:)

5cats

Pediatric Critical Care Columnist · Apr 5, 2009

I heard a statistic the other day that there have been 70,000 IEN applications in Canada in the last year. The provincial colleges of nursing were not prepared for this inundation of applications and have had to hire more staff, create new assessment programs to ensure adequacy of education and to pay for all of this they've had to drastically increase our registration fees. The employers are pressuring them to speed things up, but what would they rather have... someone who is only marginally qualified to provide health care or someone who has been assessed thoroughly? When you consider that the employer is ultimately the taxpayer in Canada, you'd think they'd want to be sure the nurses caring for their loved ones or themselves were at least as competent as the local crop of nurses. Wouldn't you?

RGN1 · Apr 5, 2009

At Foothills though they are not recruiting foreign nurses right now. I heard that from the actual recruiter, so I guess CARNA is getting some temporary relief thanks to the economy right now!:-D

petgroomer · Apr 15, 2009

Well, I think that it may take longer when the nurses are required to undergo additional education, like bridging programs etc.

carz · Apr 16, 2009

Instead of recruiting all the foriegn nurses at a costly venture, why doesnt the government assist with bridgeing LPNs to RNs?

Pediatric Critical Care Columnist · Apr 16, 2009

Instead of recruiting all the foriegn nurses at a costly venture, why doesnt the government assist with bridgeing LPNs to RNs?

Now that is the $64,000,000 question! But that seems to be the way things are done here: they'd rather bring in new people than keep the people they already have. One of our managers told a coworker that we're all replaceable. Tell that to the eight people who resigned in the weeks after she said that, whose vacant positions have been reposted 4 times already!

petgroomer · Apr 16, 2009

Now that is the $64,000,000 question! But that seems to be the way things are done here: they'd rather bring in new people than keep the people they already have. One of our managers told a coworker that we're all replaceable. Tell that to the eight people who resigned in the weeks after she said that, whose vacant positions have been reposted 4 times already!

I hope the resignations have not caused a lot of problems for the people who stayed, "forced overtime", "double shifts" and "last minute calls" are a pain, especially if after all of that you don't even get a good "THANK YOU". :twocents:

EdmontonAB · Apr 16, 2009

Well I am taking the bridging program through Athabasca. In my opinion the goverment does not want LPNs to bridge to RNs because there is also a shortage of LPNs in Canada.

EdmontonAB · Apr 16, 2009

Also, in Alberta if you take the bridging program you are not eligible to work as a third year student. We are eligible for the new grad program but intake is only once a year maybe twice a year (in BC intake is monthly).

Pediatric Critical Care Columnist · Apr 16, 2009

Petgroomer, of course those resignations caused problems for the rest of us. More than half of those who left were very experienced people with a long history on the unit, so they've left a HUGE hole. We've been staffing with about 25-30% overtime on every shift for months. A couple of weeks ago our transport nurse worked from 7 am until 6:05 the following morning because of a prolonged transport that ended up with her returning to the unit on the next shift, to find that they were short four nurses and the place was in crisis. She stayed. Safe? No. But neither was the alternative.

In the 6 1/2 years I've worked on this unit there have been 114 nurses who resigned. That's one every 3 weeks, but more than half of them have left in the last two years or so. And they're being replaced with new grads or nurses with limited experience in nursing. So it's trickling down and soon it'll be a deluge.

Fiona59 · Apr 16, 2009

Instead of recruiting all the foriegn nurses at a costly venture, why doesnt the government assist with bridgeing LPNs to RNs?

This has been a hot topic at work due to the group of BScNs who were permitted to work as LPNs due to educational issues.

What Capital Health spent on that group could have put 30 experienced LPNs through the diploma bridge and those nurses have ties to the region and would have stayed in their new roles.

But for some reason, CH imported these nurses just as the last diploma class closed.

One theory is, they simply cannot afford to lose any experienced LPN from the floor. On my unit PNs are prevented by scope of practice from taking Charge (who wants that anyway?), piercing the travisol or blood bag, and flushing central lines/Piccs. Facility scope prevents us from dropping an NG despite it being part of our basic education. There are times when we can go months without Travisol or blood on my unit. So what is the difference at those times? Wages.

The PN scope of practice is constantly being broadened as is the education. We are pretty much at the level of the diploma RN as it stands now. We've heard from various educators that Piccs and blood bags will be ours as well within the next five years.

All we hear about the expansion of the RN scope of practice involves "critical thinking". Give both grades of nurses a break. We think critically every shift.