It's not known yet if that will need to happen, but I think it would be a last resort if it does.
So far, many nurses in Canada have been expressing interest in offering their help in the Covid-19 crisis.
The Public Health Agency of Canada posted an online application for RNs interested in Covid-19 response. They closed the job posting yesterday, and reported that they received a high number of applicants.
The RNAO sends Covid-19 emails every few days, and on March 17th they said in their email that over 3000 RNs and NPs responded to their survey expressing interest in helping in the Covid-19 crisis.
The RPNAO also sent out a survey for RPNs who may be interested in offering their help, and so have have received 1600 responses from RPNs.
In Ontario, nurses in the retired and non-practicing class can express interest in having their licence reinstated temporarily for this crisis, and I read somewhere that there were quite a few of them interested in doing that.
I don't know how the response is in other provinces, I'm only speaking for Ontario.
But so far, it looks like there won't be a need for nursing students to be employed in hospitals for this crisis as there are many nurses interested in working for the crisis.
