preview

There is a Nursing Shortage in Canada

Decent Essays

Nursing Shortage in Canada Population in Canada continues to increase as per Statistics Canada (2013). To provide quality nursing services for such a population we need sufficient nursing workforce. According to Little (2007), by 2016, Canada will face a nursing shortage of 100,000 nurses. The major reasons for this being unemployment of immigrated internationally educated nurses in Canada and emigration of Canadian-educated nurses to countries like USA. According to College of Nurses of Ontario [CNO]a (2007), as stated in Blythe, J, et al. (2009), in 2007, 11% of registered nursing workforce in Ontario constitutes Internationally Educated Nurses (IEN). Most of the IENs are left unemployed after they migrate to Canada because of rigid requirements of language skills, licensure exams, variability in nursing education across countries etc. (Blythe et al., 2009). Between 1997 and 2000, of the 25 506 foreign-educated nurses applying for licensure in the USA, approximately 22% were Canadian applicants, most of whom were new graduates (Buchan et al. 2003 as in Hall et al., 2009). If immigration of IENs can be made more beneficial to Canada and Canadian nurses are provided better incentives to practice in Canada, then nursing shortage that we are currently facing can be avoided. The decision to recruit more IENs into Canada was made because of the nursing shortage that is intensifying. There are three stages to integrate into nursing profession in Canada, which

Get Access