Nursing in Calegary Alberta

Because you're already registered in Ontario, it'll probably only take you three or four months to get all your paperwork in order to be registered with CARNA. Part of the delay is with CARNA, part with CNO. Once CARNA gets your application they send you a huge pile of forms, some of which have to be returned to them by CNO. It's coming close to the end of the registration year in Ontario so there will be some workload-related delay at that end. Once CARNA has all your documents and they've approved your registration they'll most likely email you the final stuff. And then you'll be good to go. You don't need to wait for all of that to be accomplished to start applying for jobs, because that process too takes a considerable amount of time.

Alberta Health Services is the main employer of nurses in the province. They're "looking for efficiencies" in the system, meaning vacancies go up because they have to be posted, but nothing in the collective agreement says they have to be filled. About 18 months ago they introduced a "new" nursing model they call Co-Act, which is no different from every other staffing experiment conducted in the past. It's a team nursing/staff mix/workforce transformation retread. Most of the patient "care" is provided by unlicensed staff. For example, a 40 bed medical-surgical unit might have one RN, two LPNs and 5 health care aids on shift. The RN is in charge and has a light assignment. The LPNs delegate to the HCAs, who might be required to do all the vitals and the blood sugars, pass the oral meds, do all the baths, all the ambulation/mobilization while the licensed personnel give IV meds and treatments. I have a friend who is a HCA on a medicine unit; she's been asked to do clean dressing changes, discontinue foleys and do trach care. Why pay an RN to do those things if an aide will do them?

Covenant Health is another major player; faith-based hospitals and care homes are their thing. Their postings are pretty explicitly labeled as internal applicants only. I was a patient in one of their hospitals last year and I honestly couldn't tell you who passed my meds or checked my vitals. The only person who actually told me what her credentials were was a nursing student.

If you can get a foot in the door you might be able to parlay a casual position into a regular position eventually. But you'll probably have to start with casual and work whenever you can.

Getting a foot in with Alberta Health Services isn't easy right now for external applicants. AHS is the employer, not the individual hospitals or units so that's the biggest hurdle right there. So speaking to a manager or even an HR person isn't really all that helpful. AHS screens all the applications as they come into the system - all applications are made electronically and somewhat generically - looking for specific keywords that relate to the position being filled. You need to read the posting very carefully and figure out what the probably keywords will be so that you can include them in your application/cover letter. By the time the potential applicants' information being passed to the hiring manager, they'll have already been screened several times.

The United Nurses of Alberta have been negotiating with AHS since April; we're working without a contract at the moment and there's been precious little progress made. The two parties have agreed to voluntary mediation with the employer reluctant to discuss anything with a dollar value attached. So things like adequate staffing, filling existing vacancies, improvements to benefits and salary... not open for discussion. Today the government reiterated its position that in 2018 there will be a number of "compassionate" budget cuts in the public sector. That signals even more difficulty in maintaining safe staffing levels and all the rest. It sounds as if your move to Alberta isn't a maybe but a fact, and I recommend you prepare for a difficult road to employment. Start looking at the career opportunities on the AHS website now and get a fix on how to word your applications. Get ahead of it now. Don't wait.