Nursing Shortages and International Migration

Created for a SSHRC knowledge Synthesis grant led by Dr Margaret Walton-Roberts this film examines the issue of nursing shortages and the global migration of nurses.

[elverdad]

I am a Canadian ex-nurse. The REAL cause of the nursing shortage is the bullying. The reason the average age of the nursing population is over 40 years old is because "nurses eat their young", (a very common saying in the nursing field). Depending on which study you read, 56 - 66%, (two out of three), new grads leave nursing before the end of their second year on the job due to the bullying. 60% are gone before the end of their first year on the job. But they have all already paid their tuition. Registration must be renewed, by giving them hundreds of dollars, every year. On the registration web page, there are three choices:
- Register now
- Register later
- You are retiring
They use the word "retiring" even though they know most nurses are leaving due to the bullying because that way they can say the nursing shortage is due to nurses "retiring". However most of the people leaving nursing are in their 20's, 30's and 40's, and they are not leaving the work force, they are just leaving nursing - in droves.
Immigrant nurses from third world countries are changing the face of nursing because they come from countries with less intensive labor laws against abuse. So they are more apt to take the abuse especially in light of the wages. I have also witnessed immigrant nurses who were forced to work as care aides, and were paid at that level. These nurse/care aides suffer brutally sadistic and racist bullying, because, as the saying goes, "nurses eat their young, care aides go back for seconds".
In union positions, the bullies cannot be fired and they know it. Non-union positions tend to be in more isolated locations where the employers have a very limited pool of potential employees to draw from. So the non-union employers still cannot fire the bullies, because then they would be even more understaffed. And facilities in these locations tend to have private, profit driven ownership who are focussed on milking their "clients" for all they're worth. Any staff member who resist doing so will have all their shifts cancelled forever. In both cases, I have witnessed that the bullies are in complete control.
In the meantime there is a constantly flowing river of gold due to two out of three nurses leaving after having paid their tuition, and hordes of people willing to pay tuition to get into nursing programs based on the promise of high wages. As a nurse who was very high up in the nurse training hierarchy, who came to our class, said, "It's about the money".
The only compromise I found in over a decade, was to work in home care. Here I could avoid most of the bullying because I worked alone. However I did nursing work, but always seemed to be paid as a care aide or home support worker, which meant a wage only slightly above minimum wage, plus I had to pay to maintain, fuel and insure my own vehicle. If I naively stood up for following regulation, first they tried to force me, then I was lied to, then all promises made upon hiring were null and void.
So I am an ex-nurse, and after almost ten years, I still have the debt to show for it. And that debt paid for a program in which there was almost no actual education.

Know what you are really getting into. If I had known, I would never have entered nursing.

[johndoe-wvnu]

American nurse. I know all about the intentional short staffing, low wages, bullying from staff/patients. It's at the point where these corporations will deal with anything if you just come to work. I just left a job. Big part of the problem? 19 y/o kid trying to set me up for sexual harassment accusation. I didn't bite, I bounced. Healthcare effects all of us. We're so screwed.

[mandeepmani]

I was done nursing in India may i able to apply in canada for do job..and i have 2 years hospital experience....