Nearly 48 per cent of nurses in Alberta under the age of 35 left the profession in 2022 and health-care systems right across Canada are struggling to hold onto young nurses, according to a new report.
The study by the Montreal Economic Institute shows that for every 100 nurses who started working in the field in 2022, 47.7 of them under the age of 35 quit. That’s up four per cent from 2013, according to the study.
“It is troubling that nearly one out of two young nurses in Alberta are leaving the profession before they turn 35,” said Krystle Wittevrongel, director of research at the MEI and co-author of the report.
“That’s a lot of people who could be treating Albertans and contributing to shorten wait times, but who aren’t because they were discouraged by the health system.”
The study suggests that work-life balance is a big contributing factor. Some of the biggest concerns from nurses include lack of control over their work schedules, mandatory overtime and a lack of shift flexibility.
Wittevrongel said the situation in Alberta is worse than the national average. Nationwide, for every 100 Canadian nurses who started in the field in 2022, 40 below the age of 35 left the profession, according to the MEI report. That number is up 25 per cent from 2013.
In comparison with other provinces, Alberta ranks fourth when it comes to the proportion of young nurses leaving the profession, sitting behind New Brunswick (80.2 per cent), Nova scotia (60.4 per cent) and Newfoundland and Labrador (50.3 per cent).
“It’s an indicator of a problem,” said Heather Smith, president of the United Nurses of Alberta.
“Particularly for young nurses, we have not had the workforce, unfortunately, to allow young nurses to get their vacation, to be able to request days off for personal reasons, for education.”
Smith said there is some mandatory overtime for nurses in Alberta, but not a lot. However, she said “guilt overtime” comes into play.
“They either don’t have their baseline at all because they haven’t been able to attract people into permanent positions, or there’s a sick call and you know the staff are going to be left short. So, you may have worked repeatedly many days in a row, 16-hour shifts, you go in because you empathize with your colleagues,” Smith said.
“Until we deal with stabilizing the work force in terms of volume and numbers, unfortunately, we’re going to continue to lose our young.”
Smith went on to say that Alberta used to be a “magnet” for new graduates from across Canada because of the high pay, but that is no longer the case.
“The nature of the work, the moral distress drives people — they have to leave. They can’t cope with another day of sitting in their car crying before they start their shift,” Smith said.
Alberta Health said the province is committed to recruiting, retaining, and supporting nurses throughout the province.
“We know more needs to be done, which is why we are taking action by conducting targeted recruitment to expand our health-care workforce,” said a statement from the ministry of health.
“Ensuring that women have timely access to the health-care they need is also an important priority of this government. We are currently working with key partners to develop a province-wide midwifery strategy, which will help create a sustainable midwifery workforce across the province.”