WHERE WILL THEY GO?
EVERY PROVINCE IS FACING THE SAME PROBLEM AS IS THE USA
Swikar Oli - Friday, May 13,2022
'Crisis proportions': Burnout among Ontario nurses is threatening the health system
“Burnout has made me leave a department I love and felt like I had a calling for,” said one respondent, adding: “I feel greatly unappreciated.”
Staffing levels were the greatest challenge, the survey found, with a significant majority of respondents (60 per cent) saying they were concerned. About 54 per cent of nurses also assigned a particular importance to having higher ratio of experienced staff during shifts. And while 53 per cent expressed concern about the workload during the pandemic, only 15 per cent reported seeing a significant increase in staffing.
Only 35 per cent of nurses reported having adequate support services to spend time with patients or clients.
“The numbers are both sobering and alarming and represent a call to action for the government, health employers, educators, and nursing associations,” Dr. Doris Grinspun, the CEO of RNAO, said in the release.
Adding to the exhaustion, a significant majority of nurses (58 per cent) said their organization limited their vacation days due to workplace demands, while 53 per cent said they had to restrict their vacation to accommodate their employer’s request.
Related video: Why Quebec’s nurses are quitting in droves (cbc.ca)
“The results are even more stark when you consider that Ontario went into the pandemic with a shortfall of 22,000 registered nurses on a per-capita basis compared to the rest of Canada,” as RNAO points out.
The report also proposes a list of recommendations to improve retention and alleviate the burnout nurses face. They include:
— Repealing Bill 124 in Ontario, which imposes wage restraints
— Increasing the registered nurse workforce by expediting applications and finding pathways for 26,000 internationally educated nurses living in Ontario
— Increasing enrollments and funding for baccalaureate nursing programs,
— Developing and fund a Return to Nursing Now program to attract registered nurses back to the workforce
— Expanding the Nursing Graduate Guarantee, reinstating the Late Career Nurse Initiative and bringing back retired registered nurses to serve as mentors.
— Establishing a nursing task force to make recommendations on retention and recruitment of registered nurses.
Sixty-eight per cent said the biggest key to retain nurses planning to leave the profession was offering better workplace supports. Having the ability to adjust their work schedules was the second biggest deciding factor in retention, at 58 per cent. Improving benefits and providing better career opportunities were other measures requested, at at 55 and 43 per cent, respectively.
“We must pay unique attention to RNs – who are the ones exiting the profession en masse,” president of RNAO Morgan Hoffarth said in the statement. “We know nurses are committed and have vital expertise, compassion and skills to share. What we need is sustained effort to retain the nurses we have, and ensure welcoming workplaces for new graduates and others who join the profession.”
The Ministry of Health is reviewing the RNAO report, spokesperson Bill Campbell wrote in an email. He noted that Ontario introduced measures during the pandemic to improve nursing workforce stability, including a nursing recruitment incentive and “the increase in seats in nursing programs to add nurses to the health system in the coming years.”
Campbell also highlighted the province’s collaboration with Ontario Health and the College of Nurses of Ontario on an initiative to “deploy internationally educated nurses to hospitals and long-term care homes.” Under the program, the province has pledged $100 million to add 2,000 nurses to the long-term care sector by 2024-25.
Campbell added: “Mental health supports have been developed for health-care workers who had been impacted by COVID-19.”
Bill 124 “applies to over one million people working in Ontario’s public sector, including those in schools, colleges, universities, the provincial government, hospitals, and the provincial police,” Kyle Richardson, a spokesperson for Ontario Treasury Board Secretariat wrote in an email. The bill, which limits wage increases for public sector workers to a maximum of one per cent for three years, has been singled out by advocates as the biggest impediment to retaining nurses.
“The Act enables three-year moderation periods on compensation increases, but it does not impose a wage freeze, rollback or job cuts. Ontario’s public sector employees are still able to receive salary increases for seniority, performance, or increased qualifications.”
RNAO’s call to increase staff levels and to increase the province’s registered nurse workforce has been backed by the Ontario Hospital Association, Ontario’s Long-Term Care COVID-19 Commission, Colleges Ontario and the Council of Ontario Universities.
The one “silver lining” in the study, said Hoffarth, is the 35 per cent increase in applications to baccalaureate nursing programs in Ontario.
Swikar Oli - Friday, May 13,2022
National Post
Overworked and overlooked during the pandemic, a large majority of Ontario nurses feel demoralized at work and are asking for things to change, according to a new survey.
Overworked and overlooked during the pandemic, a large majority of Ontario nurses feel demoralized at work and are asking for things to change, according to a new survey.
Emergency room nurse Aimee Earhart speaks to a reporter as the Omicron coronavirus variant continued to put pressure on Humber River Hospital in Toronto, on Jan. 20, 2022.
The survey, conducted by the Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario (RNAO), finds 75 per cent of nurses in the province experiencing “burnout.” Hospital and frontline workers were the most likely to report higher levels of “depression, anxiety, stress and burnout,” according to the findings, which accompanies a report detailing the personal toll the pandemic has taken on nurses across the province.
The survey was conducted between May and July of 2021, “during the height of Ontario’s third wave,” RNAO said in a news release. Close to 5,200 Canadian nurses, most of them from Ontario, participated in the survey.
It found that 70 per cent of respondents were planning to leave their jobs in five years. Among those who wanted to leave the profession, 42 per cent said they wanted out for good and would look for work in a different field altogether or simply retire.
B.C. health care workers who speak out about under-staffing hit with gag order: nurses union
The survey, conducted by the Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario (RNAO), finds 75 per cent of nurses in the province experiencing “burnout.” Hospital and frontline workers were the most likely to report higher levels of “depression, anxiety, stress and burnout,” according to the findings, which accompanies a report detailing the personal toll the pandemic has taken on nurses across the province.
The survey was conducted between May and July of 2021, “during the height of Ontario’s third wave,” RNAO said in a news release. Close to 5,200 Canadian nurses, most of them from Ontario, participated in the survey.
It found that 70 per cent of respondents were planning to leave their jobs in five years. Among those who wanted to leave the profession, 42 per cent said they wanted out for good and would look for work in a different field altogether or simply retire.
B.C. health care workers who speak out about under-staffing hit with gag order: nurses union
'Crisis proportions': Burnout among Ontario nurses is threatening the health system
“Burnout has made me leave a department I love and felt like I had a calling for,” said one respondent, adding: “I feel greatly unappreciated.”
Staffing levels were the greatest challenge, the survey found, with a significant majority of respondents (60 per cent) saying they were concerned. About 54 per cent of nurses also assigned a particular importance to having higher ratio of experienced staff during shifts. And while 53 per cent expressed concern about the workload during the pandemic, only 15 per cent reported seeing a significant increase in staffing.
Only 35 per cent of nurses reported having adequate support services to spend time with patients or clients.
“The numbers are both sobering and alarming and represent a call to action for the government, health employers, educators, and nursing associations,” Dr. Doris Grinspun, the CEO of RNAO, said in the release.
Adding to the exhaustion, a significant majority of nurses (58 per cent) said their organization limited their vacation days due to workplace demands, while 53 per cent said they had to restrict their vacation to accommodate their employer’s request.
Related video: Why Quebec’s nurses are quitting in droves (cbc.ca)
“The results are even more stark when you consider that Ontario went into the pandemic with a shortfall of 22,000 registered nurses on a per-capita basis compared to the rest of Canada,” as RNAO points out.
The report also proposes a list of recommendations to improve retention and alleviate the burnout nurses face. They include:
— Repealing Bill 124 in Ontario, which imposes wage restraints
— Increasing the registered nurse workforce by expediting applications and finding pathways for 26,000 internationally educated nurses living in Ontario
— Increasing enrollments and funding for baccalaureate nursing programs,
— Developing and fund a Return to Nursing Now program to attract registered nurses back to the workforce
— Expanding the Nursing Graduate Guarantee, reinstating the Late Career Nurse Initiative and bringing back retired registered nurses to serve as mentors.
— Establishing a nursing task force to make recommendations on retention and recruitment of registered nurses.
Sixty-eight per cent said the biggest key to retain nurses planning to leave the profession was offering better workplace supports. Having the ability to adjust their work schedules was the second biggest deciding factor in retention, at 58 per cent. Improving benefits and providing better career opportunities were other measures requested, at at 55 and 43 per cent, respectively.
“We must pay unique attention to RNs – who are the ones exiting the profession en masse,” president of RNAO Morgan Hoffarth said in the statement. “We know nurses are committed and have vital expertise, compassion and skills to share. What we need is sustained effort to retain the nurses we have, and ensure welcoming workplaces for new graduates and others who join the profession.”
The Ministry of Health is reviewing the RNAO report, spokesperson Bill Campbell wrote in an email. He noted that Ontario introduced measures during the pandemic to improve nursing workforce stability, including a nursing recruitment incentive and “the increase in seats in nursing programs to add nurses to the health system in the coming years.”
Campbell also highlighted the province’s collaboration with Ontario Health and the College of Nurses of Ontario on an initiative to “deploy internationally educated nurses to hospitals and long-term care homes.” Under the program, the province has pledged $100 million to add 2,000 nurses to the long-term care sector by 2024-25.
Campbell added: “Mental health supports have been developed for health-care workers who had been impacted by COVID-19.”
Bill 124 “applies to over one million people working in Ontario’s public sector, including those in schools, colleges, universities, the provincial government, hospitals, and the provincial police,” Kyle Richardson, a spokesperson for Ontario Treasury Board Secretariat wrote in an email. The bill, which limits wage increases for public sector workers to a maximum of one per cent for three years, has been singled out by advocates as the biggest impediment to retaining nurses.
“The Act enables three-year moderation periods on compensation increases, but it does not impose a wage freeze, rollback or job cuts. Ontario’s public sector employees are still able to receive salary increases for seniority, performance, or increased qualifications.”
RNAO’s call to increase staff levels and to increase the province’s registered nurse workforce has been backed by the Ontario Hospital Association, Ontario’s Long-Term Care COVID-19 Commission, Colleges Ontario and the Council of Ontario Universities.
The one “silver lining” in the study, said Hoffarth, is the 35 per cent increase in applications to baccalaureate nursing programs in Ontario.
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