Is nursing booming or stalling in Canada? While the country's supply
of nurses has not yet returned to its former levels before health care
budget cuts in the 1990s, it appears as if the nursing workforce is
growing. Studies on the availability of nurses in Canada demonstrate
that while the number of nurses is increasing once more, the relative
percentage of nurses to the population is smaller than 20 years ago.
The Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) collected nursing
data from 2005 to 2009 and reported that Canada has a little over
266,000 registered nurses (RNs). However, their relative number is
shrinking, unable to keep up with the growing medical needs of the
country. In 1992, there were 824 RNs for every 100,000 Canadians, but in
2009 there were 789 RNs per 100,000 Canadians.
The 1990s brought changes to Canadian health services. In the mid-90s
the country saw widespread health care budget cuts and the number of
nurses and other health care professionals shrunk as governments
implemented hiring freezes and early retirement packages. Doctors fared
better than nurses, and the number of physicians relative to the size of
the population is at an all-time high of 4.1 percent, according to
CIHI's director of pharmaceuticals and health workforce information
services Michael Hunt. Carol Brulé, a manager of health human resources
at CIHI in Ottowa, remarked that while the country has not yet grown to
nursing workforce levels that peaked in the 1990s, the number of nurses
working in Canada is growing. "I think seeing that between 2004 and
2009, the regulated nursing workforce has grown by nearly nine per cent.
I think that's good news," she said.
Many fear that former ratios of nurses to the population will not reach
their former peak because of a long recession and the high cost of
health care staff. "We're very concerned that the 1990s attitude will
happen again, which is balance the provincial budget regardless," said
Linda Silas, president of the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions, "And
the regardless is always they hit the health department so much because
it's the largest portion."
The CIHI data demonstrates that most new RN positions in Canada are in
hospitals rather than community-based care, contrary to the current push
for more outpatient facilities and clinics that are more specialized and
closer to home. The CIHI report also said that the average age of a
Canadian nurse remained stable at 45 for the period they studied. This
indicates that people who enter the nursing workforce are remaining in
that profession. Despite the hard work, nursing has long been a
profession that some people are drawn to, and expanding options for what
sort of work nurses can do makes the field even more desirable. A
student can become a nurse practitioner, which requires more education
and experience, but allows the nurse to order and interpret diagnostic
tests, perform some procedures, and even sometimes prescribe
pharmaceuticals. Students can also choose a field specialization of
nursing which similarly requires additional training but also allows
nurses to have more flexibility in how they work and what they can do
directly for patient care.
In a different report issued by the Canadian Nurses Association and the
Canadian Association of Schools of Nursing, it was demonstrated that
Canada has reached at 10-year high in student admissions to nursing
programs.