Briefing Note: Strengthening the Nursing Workforce for a Stronger Health Care System
 
1999 was a watershed year for nursing in Ontario. After a period of years of benign neglect, during which RN employment growth was stagnant while Ontario's population continued to grow and age, the mid - to late 1990s brought thousands of nursing layoffs, as then Premier Harris infamously likened nurses to hula hoops. A tough nursing HR situation dramatically worsened: workloads spiked for an aging nursing workforce, while enrolments in nursing schools were slashed and many thousands of RNs left the province or the profession. Only half of all RNs had full-time employment. Ontario earned the dubious distinction of having the worst RN-to-population ratio in the country, needing 13,000 RNs just to the catch up to the ratio for the rest of the country. Burnout was rampant and the profession was in dire straits. Nurses demanded and got a Nursing Task Force, whose 1999 report signalled a turning point in Ontario policy towards nursing. The government accepted the recommendations in the report, and was able to deliver partially on some of them. The McGuinty government made very substantial commitments to nursing, and has made significant progress in stabilizing the nursing workforce. But, recent messages from the Premier are creating fear amongst nurses and may once again destabilize the profession. This must be avoided at all costs as the damage would be irreparable.    
 
As Ontario weathers stormy economic conditions it is particularly urgent that the government invest in the people, communities and infrastructure, including health care, of this province. That means, more than ever, the government must keep its promises to strengthen nursing.
 
 
Issue: Keep the Promised Additional 9,000 Nursing Positions On Track
 
RNAO calls for:
 

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  In the 2003 election campaign, the current government promised 8,000 nursing positions in its first mandate. According to College of Nurses of Ontario data, there were 9,669 more nursing positions than there were at the start of the mandate: 6,327 more RNs in the general class, 338 more nurse practitioners, and 3,004 more RPNs. This shows that the government was more than able to meet its target. The RN-to-population ratio rose from 69 RNs per 10,000 to 71 over the time period for Ontario, meaning that access to RN care improved.  Ontario still has a considerable distance to go to recover to the levels prevailing in 1980s, when the ratio exceeded 80. When RNs talk about burnout, the RN-to-population ratios help to explain this condition. If anything, these ratios are underestimates of workload, as the general population has aged and health needs have increased.


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  In the 2007 election campaign, the government promised to add 9,000 more nursing positions. Given its performance in the previous mandate, the 9,000 target is very feasible, and necessary, given the ongoing workload challenges faced by nurses.


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  In the 2008 spring budget, the government allocated $500 million for the 9,000 additional promised nursing positions by 2011-12.


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  However, the response to a looming recession threw up a roadblock and the McGuinty government has chosen to target nursing. This is unacceptable! In the 2008 fall economic update, the brunt of government cutbacks fell on nurses ($50 million) in a delay in nursing hires. The government quite correctly undertook substantial deficit spending ($1 billion), but it chose to focus its budget cutting in an ill-advised way, and RNAO publicly pointed this out. The additional nursing positions are needed and are needed immediately. The focus on delaying nurse hires is a terrible signal to send to the nursing workforce, to new nursing graduates, and to potential nursing students. Teamed with austerity measures in the hospital sector, the potential for losing essential nurses from the system skyrockets. When each and every nurse is needed, the government must move quickly to undo the damage that this measure is causing.

• Establishing permanent funding for existing upgrading and bridging programs for internationally educated nurses who make Ontario their new home.

• A significant ethical concern in a context of a global shortage of 4.3 million health workers is the growing disparity as poor nations with the fewest nurses and greatest burden of disease are losing them to wealthy countries with the most nurses.


• A key push factor that has driven nurses from their home countries has been economic structural adjustment programs and fiscal restraint programs that have resulted in cuts to health services, increased casualization of the nursing workforce, and nursing unemployment. Both industrialized and developing countries alike are faced with the paradox of nursing shortages existing alongside unemployed nurses.


• Recruiting internationally educated nurses as a quick fix for industrialized countries that have not addressed their own HHR needs has a negative impact of destination countries as potential implications for public safety, the viability of nursing as a self-regulating profession, and the ultimate sustainability of the nursing workforce.