Much like everything in our lives right now, COVID-19 has negatively affected our RPN-BScN distant study plan by prolonging the duration of our program thus not allowing us to graduate when we intended to. As practicing professionals we feel as though our working hours should account for some of our clinical hours to get us back on track to where we anticipated we would be. This will allow us to remain on target and to be able to graduate as planned. By signing this petition and bringing it forward to the school of nursing at Nipissing University we are advocating for ourselves for a change, as appose to constantly advocating for others. 

Many of us have worked extremely hard to get to this point only to be set back by something that is out of our control. We understand that none of us anticipated this would happen and many of us are still trying to navigate this new way of living but we should not be strung along like we feel we have been and may continue to be. It is hard to say how long COVID-19 is going to affect our lives but if it continues, we will see a shortage of nurses in the near future if we continue to be held back, like we currently are. Especially considering the fact that more and more senior nurses are retiring, not wanting to work in these conditions and not to mention...the baby boomers are aging!

We are not just students, we are mothers and fathers, we are spouses, we are friends and we are frontline workers battling this virus and other ailments everyday and we have an overwhelmingly busy life outside of school. That is enough stress in itself, the unpredictability of our study plans should not be adding to that stress. Nipissing University can do better than this...it IS better than this! Lets stand up for ourselves and for one another and bring attention to what is fair!