New Brunswick is utilizing hefty signing bonuses and a plethora of advantages to draw nurses from Quebec and different provinces.
Horizon Well being, a well being authority that delivers medical care on behalf of the New Brunswick authorities, held a hiring occasion at a Montreal-area resort on Tuesday.
The occasion sought to attract nurses thinking about working in New Brunswick with a suggestion that features the promise of as much as $10,000 in signing bonuses, as much as $5,000 in relocation prices and different advantages.
New Brunswick just isn’t the one province vying for nurses. A widespread scarcity of health-care staff more and more has provinces competing with each other to draw certified nurses, however consultants say poaching staff from elsewhere in Canada won’t handle the foundation reason for staffing shortages.
Kerry Kennedy, director of expertise acquisition with Horizon Well being Community, mentioned the Montreal occasion was not a job honest however was focusing on nursing candidates who had expressed curiosity in working in New Brunswick.
“We’re all in a candidate-driven market and making an attempt to do one of the best that we are able to to recruit and retain the nurses that we’ve,” she mentioned, including that New Brunswick’s low price of dwelling and good work-life stability had been among the many causes that health-care staff could possibly be drawn to the province.
Horizon Well being Community is holding related occasions throughout the nation, in Edmonton, Ottawa and Toronto. Kennedy mentioned the primary 120 candidates will obtain custom-made therapy and assist to maneuver to New Brunswick.
That “customized” therapy may embrace assist paying for lodging or help with a companion discovering a brand new job in New Brunswick, Kennedy mentioned.
When CBC reporters attended the Quebec Horizon Well being occasion, no nurses arrived to fulfill with recruiters.
Ontario has additionally mentioned it’s making an attempt to recruit nurses from different provinces, together with Quebec. Premier Doug Ford has begun implementing new guidelines that may cut back delays for nurses from different provinces who need to work in Ontario.
Quebec is suffering from its personal staffing shortages. Obligatory extra time is ubiquitous at some hospitals, just like the Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital, the place nurses staged a sit-in final week in protest of their working circumstances.
Christian Dubé, Quebec’s well being minister acknowledged in a press release that each one Canadian provinces had been going through the identical labour shortages.
“It’s in everybody’s curiosity to recruit personnel from overseas,” he mentioned. “We now have some nice examples right here in Quebec of nurses from world wide who’re making a distinction. Within the meantime, we proceed to work to make our community an employer of selection and to enhance working circumstances.”
Frédéric Lapierre, who represents nursing and cardiorespiratory employees on the FSSS-CSN, one in all Quebec’s main health-care unions, mentioned he was not shocked to see different provinces making an attempt to recruit Quebec nurses.
“There’s a scarcity of nurses in every single place,” he mentioned, “so everyone seems to be scrambling for nurses throughout the provinces, and even throughout Quebec. I might say that it is the similar factor right here. Between the hospitals, we’re additionally combating over nurses.”
Ivy Bourgeault, a professor on the College of Ottawa and chief of the Canadian Well being Workforce Community, mentioned New Brunswick’s try to draw Quebec nurses was “telling of the difficult state of affairs that each one well being programs are in throughout the nation.”
However fairly than making an attempt to recruit nurses from their neighbouring provinces, that are additionally coping with shortages, Bourgeault mentioned provinces ought to work on retaining their very own health-care staff.
“It isn’t one of the best technique,” Bourgeault mentioned. “I am unsure how sustainable it’s, I am unsure that makes for good neighbours and it raises a variety of moral points. Are you taking from different jurisdictions that want it?”
Damien Contandriopoulos, a nursing professor on the College of Victoria, mentioned provinces competing with one another to draw nurses was an ineffective solution to remedy issues of their well being programs.
Including extra nurses to problematic hospitals the place staffing shortages are ubiquitous won’t make these hospitals higher, he mentioned, and nurses transplanted right into a poisonous atmosphere are simply as more likely to go away and discover one other place to work.
“If we need to remedy the issue for actual,” he mentioned, “we’ve to cut back stress on hospitals, we’ve to higher handle human assets and we’ve to attempt to deal with nurses higher by way of defending them from diseases, their psychological well being and work-life stability.”
