Manitoba nurses are feeling pessimistic about their future of work, according to a recent survey by Manitoba’s association of regulated nurses.
“We asked nurses across the province whether they thought it would be easier or harder to be a nurse over the next five years,” said Joyce Kristjansson, executive director of ARNM.
“Over 80 per cent of nurses expect that it will be somewhat or significantly harder to be a nurse in Manitoba in the near future.”
The survey asked nurses what they though the most urgent priorities for improving the nursing profession and the health-care system were in the province.
“All of the evidence we received shows that nurses are not just overworked, they are concerned that the system they work in is broken and making it harder for them to provide care to patients in all care settings,” Kristjansson said.
The association is calling on the province to share more details about plans to recruit and retain nurses that were teased by the Health Minister last week.
Meanwhile, the College of Registered Nurses of Manitoba is making more changes that will help internationally-trained nurses be able to work in the province, sooner.
The school will no longer require proof of immigration status, and other documents won’t be needed until they’re ready to register as a nurse.
The changes will help applicants begin their process without having to wade through red tape, according to CEO and Registrar Deb Elias.
“People can initiate their applications, get the work started to do that review and then provide English-language proficiency requirements at the end of the process,” she said, “which should decrease the time that it takes to get through the process.”
The changes are in response to feedback from applicants who have expressed frustration regarding this part of the registration.
The impact will be hard to measure until the new regulations take hold, but there are upwards of three-dozen nurses in the queue at any given time, Elias added.