Canada still had more than 27,000 vacant nursing positions in 2025. Roughly three times the number in 2016. (iedm.org)
In a 2026 nurses’ survey, 53% of respondents showed signs of burnout. Nearly one-quarter reported working a shift of at least 16 hours in the previous six months. (iedm.org)
Imagine making decisions about someone’s life after 16 hours on your feet.
Then imagine being the patient.
We need to train more nurses. We also need to give the nurses we already have a reason to stay.
Safer workloads. More control over their schedules. Protection from violence. Faster recognition of qualified nurses’ credentials. More choice in where and how they work.
Recruiting people into working conditions that burn them out is an expensive way to keep failing.
Governments should be judged on whether Canadians actually get care.
2 days agoronakk1709
As a nurse.. I’ve seen lots of nursing students who graduate and aren’t able to find jobs. Moreover, hospitals at least in the GTA and other parts of ON are laying off nurses. What would make nurses stay? Better wages that compete with real inflation, better benefits and safe nurse to patient ratios. I can’t say we’ll get there when the hospitals are borrowing money from private lenders and banks to make payroll.. Canada is too busy helping other countries with my hard earned tax payer money.
2 days agosheebaa__00
If you are short-staffed, start recruiting genuinely qualified and experienced professionals. The rules are so complicated that they make you question your own competence. I am a competent nurse with 13 years of European nursing experience, yet I am still struggling to find a way to work in Canada. Honestly, the system is unnecessarily complicated and frustrating.
2 days agofreedom_and_wellness
I personally know a number of Canadian nurses who are now working in the U.S. and paying much less in taxes.
2 days agoshusky222
Health Care is a provincial responsibility and the majority of provincial governments are conservatives. The two leading provinces Alberta and Ontario are governed by conservative parties and are trying their best to starve the public Health Care system then planning to bring in a hybrid or fully private system. Let that sink in.
3 days agoeat.sleep.hunt
Hmmm…i am triggered… I wonder if Nursing Colleges not allowing anyone in with less than 90% for high school marks is one of the reasons for this complex issue of retention in the Nursing profession. Nursing is a delicate combination of Art and Science, so high academic marks might not be the full answer to what makes a Nurse. In addition, Nursing profession offers so many different kinds of Nursing besides acute care bedside Nursing. So question - are Nurses leaving bedside nursing for other types of Nursing or leaving Nursing altogether? Poor morale in the healthcare sector is epidemic. So sad. Management’s and Government’s “solutions” are shake up the corporate structure thus destabilizing the healthcare workers…. I.e., community boards terminated and instituted 17 RHAs, which then became 9 RHAs where CEOs of Edmonton and Calgary raking in almost $1M/year, then 5 RHAs, then ‘All One’ - Alberta Health Services and last year demolished AHS and replaced with 4 Corporations and 7 Corridors. Confused yet? Paper to computer…Meditech to Connect Care. Connect Care must still be under construction because the number of spelling errors is atrocious. Spending more time with computers and machinery than with actual patients/residents/clients. Work places now seem to have more audits and auditors than caregivers. Lack of proper mentoring for managers. Soul sucking sick structures. Healthcare has devolved and is devoid of health and care has dissolved. Sorry, not sorry, for the rant.
3 days agobilly_mccoy0704
Than pay them better half of them works in the border states michigan is filled with them along with new york
3 days agostinderq
Lots of Canadian nurses working in 🇺🇸…good pay and lower patient/nurse ratios compared to 🇨🇦
3 days agolady_speaking
My sister is a nurse. She says there are too many managers. The managers have managers, and they do nothiny. She is going part-time and getting her California license and will work here and in the US.
3 days agokristaa178
For you to do your actual jobs, and not sell Canada out. Your ancestors would be turning in their graves. You’ve destroyed our health care (hence why no one will stay) while importing the third world that have full access to it (and can share with anyone else they know), while telling actual Canadians to MAID themselves. All while allowing the hospital management to cut every corner so their bonus (for doing nothing) is intact and taxing and overworking the people that actually do care. Disgusting.
3 days agojimn.9217
Step 1 - government needs to stop the bleeding and influx of people and step 2) more hospitals and doctors and nurses to accommodate current population
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