Imagine putting in years of work, spending a large amount of money, and investing a lot of time to something in order to develop knowledge and experience, only to have your recognition and credit refused for something so trivial? Will it not be discouraging? Similar events are taking place with the international nurses living in Canada. Nurses with international training who immigrated to Canada are now feeling ignored.
Even after achieving the necessary competence and experience requirements, many foreign-trained nurses in Canada still do not receive accreditation.
About 9% of nurses and 26% of physicians in Canada have received their medical education abroad. Provinces have established incentives to attract additional workers during the past year, including specialized immigration streams. Yet, up to 47% of those physicians and nurses do not work in the fields for which they were trained.
After eight years, Nikka Reyes, a hemodialysis nurse with training from abroad who moved to Manitoba in the hopes of finding employment in her field, is now residing and employed in the United States since she was unable to receive accreditation in Canada.
In Ontario and Manitoba, Reyes sought to become a registered nurse and a licensed practical nurse. She also completed training and a skills evaluation test which cost her $1400 dollars.
Yet, she consistently failed the hearing section of the Canadian English Language Benchmark Assessment for Nurses (CELBAN) exam. Prior to making another attempt, she must wait for two years.
“The process is just incomprehensible. All of us are confused,” Nikka Reyes said.
Another foreign nurse who successfully finished the necessary medical course online experienced a similar outcome and failed the listening section of the English language test. She figures that only on competency evaluations, she has paid $2,000 so far.
Similar to these nurses, many more are having trouble finding employment in their industry because some of their credentials and language abilities don’t fit Canada’s standards.
In this context, the Manitoba government is travelling to the Philippines to recruit nurses.
A Manitoban delegation is now in the Philippines for recruiting healthcare workers. They are providing paid transportation to Manitoba, lodging for up to three months, payment of licensing and registration fees, and assistance with the immigration procedure. Those who attend will also be assigned a mentor to guide them through their initial few weeks of employment.
There are 1,500 to 2,000 nursing positions open in Manitoba, many of them in rural areas, according to Monika Warren, chief nursing officer of Shared Health, the organization in charge of running the province’s healthcare system. Manitoba is recruiting nurses from the Philippines to fill these positions.
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As Warren indicated, there are four applications for each nursing education position. Still globally trained nurses are striving to obtain provincial certification. Moreover, more nurses are being approached for the vacancies from Philippines.
What’s even more alarming is that Manitoba’s recruitment program is unsuitable to healthcare in the Philippines. Concerns over the departure of healthcare workers has been voiced by a department of health official in the Philippines.
Officer-in-charge Maria Rosario Vergeire stated that the country is lacking 106,000 nurses in both public and private institutions due to nurses migrating abroad in search of employment and better pay and working conditions.
“There’s got to be fairness between Manitoba and the Philippines with regards to attracting more nurses here”, said Jon Reyes, Manitoba’s minister of labor and immigration.
The shortage of qualified nurses and healthcare staff in Canada is a persistent problem that needs urgent attention. While provincial governments continue to recruit abroad, many nurses already in Canada who trained overseas are struggling to become accredited, despite possessing valuable skills and experience. This represents a significant loss of talent and expertise and raises questions about the effectiveness of the accreditation process. The situation demands a comprehensive review of the accreditation process to ensure that nurses who have trained abroad are given the opportunity to contribute their skills to the Canadian healthcare system. At the same time, it is crucial that provincial governments work towards developing a more sustainable strategy for addressing the shortage of healthcare staff within Canada, rather than relying solely on recruitment trips overseas.
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