RN1031

Oh I completely agree. I love my job too but its just so discouraging to see how under funded community care is. As you said the elderly citizens suffer much more that us nurses with people being sent home too early or with limited care allotted. I also work with children and although their funding is quite better than the elderly, Its far from enough. I believe everyday nurses enrich and better the lives of all our clients. Its that knowledge that makes us all stay in our profession. However I do feel that it is within out power to change it- I mean how did the other nurses in our profession get hospital funding? We are supposed to be client and care advocates and I feel that we too often sell ourselves short thinking we cant make a change. Is there some way to increase community support and funding so that the system could be better for our clients and professionals?

I know that community nurses aren't unionized and the budget is unrealistically low- but I don't understand how this hasn't been brought up or pressed further. As you said the push is to keep people out of the hospital as it costs thousands of dollars a day to support hospital stays; yet they won't increase pay or funding for community healthcare. Many nurses would probably come to the community if the rates were the same as the hospital and this would not only provide better care to and improve health status of clients, but also allow nurses to work freely within the areas they love without having to factor in paychecks.

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Hi, I am a recent graduate who has worked in both the hospital and community settings since graduating. Recently I have relocated to Ontario from Alberta and have secured a full-time job as a community RN. I am just wondering if anyone else has noticed that here in Ontario community-based RNs are paid quite less than RNs based within a hospital. Does anyone know why this is so? I mean both professionals attended university for their BSCNs, both work very closely with patients, families and other disciplines to provide optimum care, and both are considered to be within the same profession-- so I ask why the pay difference? I can anticipate people will respond with acute care v. homecare but I interject that within my practice I have dealt with very acute clients and am required on a daily basis to not only provide cardiac care, chemo and wound-care, but also be skilled in many basic and complex skills such as PICC care, Ostomies, Iv insertions, VACs, Port-a-cath accessing/deaccessing that all RNs working in hospitals would not be required to. To clarify in no way am I saying that community nurses are in anyway superior to hospital nurses or vice versa; I am just saying that as professionals with the same level of knowledge and skill, why are community nurses paid less? Any thoughts or observations form your practice would be appreciated!

hi! i am a grade 12 student who wants to go for my bachelor of science nursing degree. My mom lives in ontario and my dad in Alberta and i am trying to decide which school is best to attend, since i can live at home. I have applied to Grant MacEwan, UOIT and Ryerson. Which one is the better school? thanks for your help!