RN in US inquiring about Canadian nursing issues

[HP1017]

hello to all,

i am an rn, bsn working in the us. i've been a nurse now for about 2.5 years. i am interested in enriching my knowledge about the canadian healthcare, especially rns working in canada. what are the nursing issues over there in canada? if anyone would like to respond, please do.

thanks,

hp1017:wink2:

[NotReady4PrimeTime, RN]

Our nursing issues are very similar to those anywhere. The patients are sicker and have longer stays, there are too few nurses on the floors to be truly safe in the provision of care, the administration seems not to care about those on the frontlines... and so on. We're always being asked to do more with less. We're losing our experienced nurses and seeing them replaced with new grads, even in critical care. We don't have the support of nursing management in conflicts with the medical staff and there's a lack of collaboration between disciplines that seems to fluctuate with the day of the week and phase of the moon. We're dealing with more difficult ethical issues all the time. Our universal health care programme sometimes leads to inappropriate treatment decisions because no one is looking at the value of a procedure or treatment plan, just what the patient wants. (Should an infant with known brain damage and total renal failure be given a heart transplant just because we can do it? Should we keep brain dead people on life support for several days because the family isn't ready to say goodbye?) We're really not all that different here than anywhere else.