IEN bound to Alberta, Canada- please read

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Hi. I'm an IEN from Philippines and I would like to share my experience.. Last July 2008, Capital/Covenant Health made a recruitment trip in the Philippines and hired more than 1000 highly qualified nurses and promised that they will deploy us come Dec. 08. We processed all of the requirements like CARNA eligibility, visa processing at CIC-Manila. But unfortunately, AHS was formed and as we all know, according to AHS, "there is no more Nursing shortage in Alberta" and the rest was history. Now, there is no word coming from AHS and it's partner agency here in Philippines( Mercan ). No LMO came and we were advised by CIC Manila that all of our application for Work Permit will be refused..Now we were left with no options but to look for another employer in other provinces. So guys if you have any plan to move and work in alberta, think a thousand time. If you want to waste your resources and time, then go ahead.

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Specializes in intensive care, recovery, anesthetics.

Do you have a written job offer or just verbal promises from the agency?

5cats

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Specializes in Medical and general practice now LTC.

Not sure how they could deploy you within 5 months when we know it has been taking a bit longer than that to go through the province college. The merge within Alberta has only happened this year so suspect that it is the agency that has let you all down.

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Hhm. This was the agency that provided CH with the RNs who only evaluated as LPNs in Alberta when the academic credentials were processed. They were given LPN status to try and salvage some of the expenses the province incurred recruiting these nurses.

When the health regions were amalgamated, it's understandable that nurses already in Canada were given priority in the hiring process. There really was a problem with staff allocation in some authorities.

What made the whole thing leave a bad taste in many Alberta nurses was the way it was handled. Nurses already in the system who wanted full time hours were unable to find positions. But when CH had to provide full time jobs for the work permits, suddenly they could merge two part time jobs to create a full time job for an IEN. This did not go over well at home.

When there is a hiring freeze, of course your work permits will be declined for the sheer fact that every job vacancy in Alberta Health Services is now restricted to internal applicants only.

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yes there is a written job offer coming from Capital Health but unfortunately it is valid only up to Dec. '08. Last March '09, they promised us to provide a new job offer coming from AHS along with the LMO but it never came up to now. Our agency here in the Philippines(MERCAN) left us hanging in the air.

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Specializes in intensive care, recovery, anesthetics.

They promised way to much, as Silverdragon said.

Obviously they have no control over the employment situation anywhere and they don't issue visas. This is exactly what several people here tried to point out, in several threads, about agencys.

Hope many people especially from the Philippines are reading this.

5cats

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@ 5cats,

what we have is a contract.we were given one right after we passed the interview conducted by AHS representatives. it's sad to say we got caught in this mess, this waiting game. we don't know how AHS and our agency is going to pull us out from this mess. it was known yesterday from a fellow nurse that she received a letter from the embassy,asking for compliance of our LMO from our employer.AHS is given only 30 days to comply.f they fail to give one, then our papers will be returned to the agency.

the contract was signed last year and left us nowhere. can't help feeling so dumb in failing to see what's coming.even let go of the opportunity to work somewhere else because of what this agency offered and the signed contract with AHS..

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Alberta Health Services was only created this year (2009)

http://www.hsaa.ca/index_html/q_and_a_working_under_the_new_alberta_health_services

So, how did they manage to sign and approve contracts in 2008?

AHS immediately froze all internal moves and new hires. So, I really don't understand how they were supposed to have recruited people in 2008.

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I am also one of the hundreds of IEN hired by Capital Health/Mercan last july2008 and up until now I keep on asking myself why I pursued my application with them despite the numerous offers coming from other agencies. I am stuck here in the country (Philippines) while a lot of my friends who have applied for Canada during the same period that I signed my contract with Capital Health are already now in Saskatchewan and Manitoba. When the various health authorities in Alberta merged into one, forming the Alberta Health Services, they promised a new revised contract for us but nothing happened since then. The failure of Mercan and AHS to provide a concrete plan for the numerous IENs that they hired last year sometimes make me think if my decision in applying for a nursing job in Alberta is the right choice.. Nurses I know who have also been hired last year are also left guessing on the fate of our application. I just do hope that our time, effort and money will not be put in vain. I am still hopeful for a positive outcome, but the uncertainty is very distressing.

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Specializes in NICU, PICU, PCVICU and peds oncology.

Even those of us who have jobs already with AHS are feeling great uncertainty. They haven't ruled out layoffs or rollbacks at all, so there could be much more pain in the offing.

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Alberta Health Services was only created this year (2009)

http://www.hsaa.ca/index_html/q_and_a_working_under_the_new_alberta_health_services

So, how did they manage to sign and approve contracts in 2008?

AHS immediately froze all internal moves and new hires. So, I really don't understand how they were supposed to have recruited people in 2008.

Hi Fiona59,

Capital/Covenant Health is the one who gave us the approved contracts last July '08. You are right that AHS was only created this year that's why our job contract with Capital Health became null and void. AHS didn't provide us a new job contract.

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yeah i am wondering too.i cant believe that our agency did not see it coming.they just left us wondering until things cannot be kept from us anymore.

we have been led to believe after signing the contract last July that we will be deployed. it is only until now that we have known how futile our situation is. if not for the embassy sending us letter about the the deadline of LMO from our employer, we wouldn't have known about the real situation. they can't even tell us honestly earlier about the possibilites so that we can also start looking for other options. i won't believe that they didn't see it coming and that it is only now that they have known about it..there were no announcements and they refused to give an update about what's going on from time to time.

still don't know if we can make any move against our agency and if we can make a formal complaint about these things and to whom we can address it to.

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