Nurses and Citizens Need the Nursing Shortage in NB to be Resolved -NOW! 

The healthcare system has been teetering on the brink of collapse since well before the pandemic began. The COVID-19 pandemic has simply highlighted where all of the frailties are, which have been on the backs of the nurses at the expense of patients.

The risk of dying in a hospital increases with every additional patient a nurse is responsible for. The nursing shortage is well documented. It has been over twenty years of nurses doing regular overtime to fill empty positions and it has been twenty years without a plan to correct that. The shortage of nurses and the consequences to the delivery of care to patients is in every form of media, every day. What isn't in the media is a plan to correct the shortage and the voice of the stakeholders in putting a plan in place.

The time is now. This can't wait another day. It's time for all responsible parties (Department of Health, Department of Post Secondary Education and Labour, Horizon Health, Vitalite Health Network, UNB, UdeM, NBCC, Campus of Extended Learning, NANB, NBNU) to get to work to create measurable outcomes, benchmarks, an implementation date as soon as possible and report the plan to the Nurses working tirelessly and the public. 

We, the nurses and citizens of New Brunswick, expect immediate actions be taken to resolve the nursing shortage in NB with due consideration to the following:

• Allow internationally Educated Nurses to practice in NB with fewer unnecessary barriers, as are in place at this time
• Open up the number of seats for Advanced Standing Nursing programs which requires support from the government
• Allow LPN, who have been providing care, to enter into the bridging program regardless of when they graduated from the LPN program
• Offer nursing students forgivable loans with a promise to stay for 5 years
• Give new graduates full time positions and support them in their first year of practice rather than pushing them beyond their comfort and capacity
• Create a single entry point for health care workers to be evaluated and admitted to the right level of education from the beginning (PSW, LPN, BN)
• Connecting the programs in a series to streamline the ability to get from PSW to LPN to BN
• Employ student nurses in the hospital after 2nd and 3rd year in the nursing program, providing them with important experiential learning opportunities and contributing to the care being provided on the floors
• Create multiple entry points during the year to increase and stagger the graduates entering the system until the supply meets the demand
• If there is a waiting list for people to get into health care education, enroll these students asap in the appropriate programs
• Increase the number of seats available for nurses to take the critical care program
• Allow students to collect EI while going to school
• Allow secondments for front line staff to do clinical instruction
• Consider a program that replaces nurses who decide to take 18 month maternity leaves and parental leaves. In a female dominant profession, this is imperative to meet on-going staffing demands

Please support nursing professionals who care for you when you need it by signing this petition. Healthcare professionals are struggling to stay positive and are seriously considering leaving the profession