About Nursing

Canada's health care depends on nurses.

Canada's three regulated nursing professions (Licensed Practical Nurses, Registered Nurses, and Registered Psychiatric Nurses) are a critical component of the health care system, accounting for more than half of all health care workers in Canada. They are involved in every aspect of patient care working in every health care environment, from the emergency room to the community centres in the far north. Nurses are caregivers and educators and are on the front line of our health care system.

And they are in crisis.

Nurses are faced with high attrition rates, as large numbers of older nurses retire and few new nurses graduate. For a variety of reasons, it is difficult for nurses to find full time work, and as a result, many nurses find themselves stretched thin as they work multiple jobs. Nurses lose productivity and pay due to illness brought about by constant stress and work overload. And because there is a significant lack of information about the nursing labour force, there has been little done in the way of creating an overarching, long term strategy to address this looming crisis.

There are issues that are common to the three nursing occupational groups.

Ageing workforce
Retention and recruitment issues
Stress and work overload
Safe and healthy work environments
High attrition rates

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