A call to invest in Canada’s nursing workforce post-pandemic
Nurses make up the world’s largest healthcare workforce and have played a vital role during the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic has uncovered many weaknesses of the health system that have resulted in high levels of nursing shortages.
The Royal Society of Canada tasked a group of national nursing experts to conduct a comprehensive study to: (i) better understand the how the pandemic has affected our nurses, (ii) find out why many nurses are leaving the healthcare system, and (iii) find out ways in which we can strengthen our nursing workforce post-pandemic.
Read this open access paper on the FACETS website.
The review looked at evidence before and during the pandemic to inform this policy brief.
The experts also examined qualitative surveys and interviews with nursing perspectives, looked at information from across Canada and other countries, and conducted interviews with nurses from Nova Scotia and Saskatchewan.
Results from this study showed that several ongoing issues such as nurses feeling undervalued and overworked with lack of rewards for their good work and feeling unsafe at work have become worse during the pandemic.
The nursing experts and the review team have come up with seven recommendations and four key actions to strengthen nursing workforce in Canada.
Read the paper — Investing in Canada’s nursing workforce post-pandemic: A call to action by Gail Tomblin Murphy, Tara Sampalli, Lisa Bourque Bearskin, Nancy Cashen, Greta Cummings, Annette Elliott Rose, Josephine Etowa, Doris Grinspun, Esyllt W. Jones, Mélanie Lavoie-Tremblay, Kathleen MacMillan, Cindy MacQuarrie, Ruth Martin-Misener, Judith Oulton, Rosemary Ricciardelli, Linda Silas, Sally Thorne, and Michael Villeneuve
