- Current Nursing Shortage -
British Columbia
October 14, 2010
Everyone has something to say about the current nursing shortage. The nursing labor union, governments and employers all have a vested interested in making sure that there are enough nurses in the health care system to meet the needs of the residents of BC.
The fact that there is a nursing shortage projected well into the future, seems to be something they all agree on. What to do about it of course is something that always brings a variety of solutions each designed to meet the interests of the body that proposes it.
These are some of the political nuances of nursing in Canada.
Here is an update on what the nursing labor union, the government and the employers are doing about the nursing shortage in BC.
Nursing Labor Union
The BC Nurses Union says on their website that there is a current nursing shortage of about 2000 nurses in British Columbia.
They have an extensive paper prepared that gives solutions to the nursing shortage which includes recommendations to:
- make continuing education more accessible
- include bridging programs for licensed practical nurses to upgrade to a registered nurse.
- study the workload issues affecting nurse retention
- improve support from nursing leadership
- relieve nursing of non-nursing duties like housecleaning and clerical work
- establish research projects that will help to better understand issues that members of the nursing workforce are facing in their everyday working lives.
Read what the BCNU has to say about the
current nursing shortage in BC here.
Provincial Government
Summary of the July 2010 report from the
provincial government.
Since 2006 the B.C. Nursing Strategy has supported the integration of 835 Internationally Educated Nurses into the B.C. health system.
Since 2001, government has invested more than $190 million to educate, recruit and retain nurses.
The report also outlines a number of strategies that have been funded to increase the number of nurses coming into the system and retain the ones who are already there.
The Employer
One of the largest health authorities in BC is handling the current nursing shortage by implementing a policy that will see some registered nurses taken out of the long term care sector and reassigned to the more acute care facilities.
They will be replaced by Licensed Practical Nurses and Care Aides.
The employer's rationale is that they are trying to match the needs of patients in long term care facilities with the appropriate professional
nursing scope of practice.
Regulatory Nursing Organization
The College or Registered Nurses of BC appears to be silent on the matter - perhaps because their legal mandate is
protection of the public.
They have a produced a document entitled "Working With Limited Resources" that outlines how registered nurses are expected to handle overcapacity work situations (this is a fancy way of saying too many patients and not enough nurses) in light of the legal duty to care and the requirement of registered nurses to conduct their own nursing practice according to the standards set by the college.
Check out the number of nursing jobs available in BC on the
health care job site for each of the health authorities and decide for yourself if there is a nursing shortage.
