Canada's health-care system hemorrhaging nurses: Study

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Canada is seeing an exodus of nurses.

A study found that 40 young nurses left the profession for every 100 that started working in 2022.

“For every 100 nurses we train in the country, 40 are leaving the profession before their 35th birthday,” said study co-author Emmanuelle Faubert, an economist at the Montreal Economic Institute.

“This exodus of young nurses has been worsening for the past decade, contributing to our health-care woes.”

By 2030, Canada is expected to face a shortage of 117,600 nurses.

“Ontario used to be able to retain its nurses better than most provinces, with less than one in five young nurses leaving the profession only a decade ago,” noted Faubert. “Much like in the rest of the country, Ontario needs to find ways to bring back more flexibility in health-care workplaces to help with retention.” .

Nurses complain about workplace stress and a lack of control over their work schedules and shift flexibility.

Nurses who wanted to quit their current position expressed an interest in working for an independent nursing agency.

Nurses say they are looking for better working conditions with more flexibility and better pay, which they believe is possible at independent agencies.

“It’s understandable why governments would want to reduce their reliance on nursing agencies, given their costs, but that shouldn’t be done at the expense of patient treatment,” said Faubert. “If governments want to reduce their reliance on independent staff, they need to work on giving young nurses more flexibility to make working for the health-care system attractive to them once more.”

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