Canadian province hiring international nurses.

[sephine]

Good day!

can you suggest which province/provinces are currently in great need of nurses & are even open to hiring international nurses?

I'm thinking of sitting the CRNE but before that I need to decide which province can give me higher chances of employment. I've heard British Columbia isn't currently in need.

thanks guys!

[NotReady4PrimeTime, RN]

Everything is ridiculously expensive up there. That's because everything is flown in to many of those communities due to the fact there's no road in during the summer and in a lot of years even the winter roads (over frozen lakes) aren't open long enough to truck things in. Processed foods with long shelf-lives are the staples there; fresh food spoils soon after it arrives since it may have been in transit for more than a week when it gets where it's going. It's much cheaper to eat potato chips than it is to eat a baked potato and to drink Coke rather than milk. The rates of Type 2 diabetes are astronomical. The 100-mile diet Fiona refered to would be pretty restrictive - fish, game and berries.

Communities are small and very widely spaced with few amenities. My dad spent 12 years working up there in different places and the stories he tells makes me think I'd never survive. I like to see the sun - have a 10 foot wide window in my living room - and I live far enough north that from October to late March I go to work in the dark and come home in the dark no matter if I'm on days or nights. There, it's dark 20 hours a day for those same months. The sun doesn't even appear from mid-November to early January. These charts are for one of the places where my dad lived. http://www.climate-charts.com/Locations/c/CN71925025006000.php

There are only two hospitals of any size up there in the western aprt of the country, Whitehorse General (49 beds) in the Yukon and Stanton General (79 beds) in Yellowknife. And there is one hospital in Nunavut, Baffin Regional in Iqaluit. Patients are at least 90% First Nations. Most of the nurses working in the far north are employed by the federal government. As Fiona says, they're largely NPs with advanced scopes of practice because they are the only source of health care in many small communities. It definitely isn't for the faint of heart. I have a friend who flies adult medevac out of Yellowknife; pediatric patients transferred south for treatment are transported by our PICU transport team. The eastern part of Nunavut is serviced by Quebec and the central part by Manitoba. 5 Nunavut communities are serviced out of Edmonton.

As you can see, Canada is much more than the sum of all its parts!

[NurseCubanitaRN2b, BSN, RN]

Thank you for all the information. I believe that Yellowknife is the most populus area of the north. Am I correct? It has about 20,000 people there.

[NotReady4PrimeTime, RN]

You're right. Yellowknife has a few economic advantages, such as a military base and headquarters for a number of diamond mines. It's also a transportation hub and distribution point for goods. (When I was a little girl my dad was a "suicide jockey" - he used to haul dynamite from Calgary to Yellowknife for the construction of the McKenzie Highway, which originates in my mom's hometown of Grimshaw, Alberta and ends in Wrigley, NWT.) The federal and territorial governments are the largest employer though. There's a thriving tourist industry there too. People from all over go there to see the Northern Lights. Yellowknife is probably the most "southern" community in the north. I really have to get up there one day.

[NurseCubanitaRN2b, BSN, RN]

Is it a long drive from Calgary to Yellowknife? Is that where they would hold the high risk deliveries? Surgeries etc?

[NotReady4PrimeTime, RN]

Is it a long drive from Calgary to Yellowknife? Is that where they would hold the high risk deliveries? Surgeries etc?

Oh yeah! It's 1790 km (1118 miles) by some very challenging roads, which would have been even worse back in the early 60's when my dad was driving them.

High-risk deliveries, neonatal intensive care, complex surgeries, trauma care, cancer care and so on are provided from Edmonton, about 1500 km (about 940 miles) south. I think Stanton has a dialysis unit and they have a three-bed ICU. All of their sicker peds are sent south, even if they don't need PICU. 95% of the peds patients from there are medevaced by our PICU transport team.

[NurseCubanitaRN2b, BSN, RN]

Oh yeah! It's 1790 km (1118 miles) by some very challenging roads, which would have been even worse back in the early 60's when my dad was driving them.

High-risk deliveries, neonatal intensive care, complex surgeries, trauma care, cancer care and so on are provided from Edmonton, about 1500 km (about 940 miles) south. I think Stanton has a dialysis unit and they have a three-bed ICU. All of their sicker peds are sent south, even if they don't need PICU. 95% of the peds patients from there are medevaced by our PICU transport team.

That's more than an 8 hour drive by car!!!! That is very far. Now that is by far challenging for nurses, definately conditions to overcome. Wow, I can't get over the distance in itself. Thank you for the information, it was very informative.

[NotReady4PrimeTime, RN]

It's more like a 18-20 hour drive, actually. Remember I mentioned the condition of the roads? In some places due to terrain, road conditions, weather conditions or any combination, you might only be able to drive 30 mph.

I guess this makes a good case for recalling that Canada is a huge country with a small population. This country is the second largest by land mass in the world and has the same population as California. And our population is mainly concentrated within 500 miles of the US border.

[NurseCubanitaRN2b, BSN, RN]

Yeah, that's a huge area. I was thinking in terms of California when I was thinking about distance.