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Canada’s nurse recruitment leaves Ghana short-staffed (www.cbc.ca)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/canada@lemmy.ca
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*** link is to a 3.5 minute video

Canada has been looking outside its borders to fill a critical nurse shortage, but recruitment efforts are leaving Ghana’s hospitals short-staffed. Now Ghana’s nurse association says Canada should foot the bill for their training.

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[–] [S] 1 point 2 years ago (3 children)

Pretty shitty move by the provinces to steal a poorer nation's medical staff to fill their shortages.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

    Immigration is entirely a federal matter. The provinces may utilize these nurses once they are here, and reasonably so, but the provinces do not have the jurisdiction to bring them into Canada. The provinces could not 'steal' them even if they wanted nothing more. Only Canada can. Which is also why Ghana is calling on Canada, not the provinces of Canada, to make amends.

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  • [–] 0 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Sure. Imagine how bad it is being from a poor country and being offered a lot more money, better work and life conditions. Truly awful.

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  • [–] [S] 3 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    I said it was shitty for the provinces to do that versus providing more slots in education and higher wages for current medical staff. Instead they steal staff from poor nations and feel no guilt for doing that ... which is colonialism at its core.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Yes, that’s a fair point. But even with an investment in better wages, training and more education a critical shortage will take at least a couple years to be mitigated, and a couple years doesn’t seem to be a viable option right now.

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  • [–] [S] 3 points 2 years ago

    That's fair.

    Then the provinces should have IMMEDIATELY increased enrollment to nursing AND increased wages to help keep that current staff on.

    None of the problems created by provincial gov'ts should be solved by stealing nurses from other nations.

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  • [–] -1 points 2 years ago* (2 children)

    versus providing more slots in education

    The nurses are wanted now, not years down the line.

    and higher wages for current medical staff.

    Are you under the impression that current medical staff are working at only partial capacity and more money will see them step up their game? That's a brutal insult to them.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    No, we have a shortage because people are leaving nursing due to the high stress and low pay. I know multiple people who quit nursing, or moved somewhere with better pay, so the low pay is definitely causing the shortage.

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  • [–] -4 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 child)

    people are leaving nursing due to the high stress and low pay

    No amount of money is going to keep someone who has burned out on high stress, but this does nothing to increase the labour available anyway, unless you think nurses have "quite quitted" and will only do more work for more pay. But that is an insult to think that they have done that as clearly that is not the case. So, I'm not sure you've made yourself clear.

    we have a shortage

    A shortage is a situation where an external mechanism prevents price from rising. If we truly have a shortage, paying more is fundamentally not an option. Of course, we don't have a shortage and I'm not sure why you are trying to claim that we do. Wishing you could have something is not a shortage. If it were, there would be effectively nothing not in a shortage situation, leaving it to be a meaningless term.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    No amount of money is going to keep someone who has burned out on high stress

    Yes it will. They are leaving because the pay is not worth the stress. More pay makes it more worth it.

    we don't have a shortage

    Yes we do, there are not enough nurses to keep hospitals running at their designed efficiency. And the government is purposefully not paying more to fix the shortage because they want public healthcare to get worse so they can sell us on private healthcare.

    We do have enough people qualified to be nurses in the country to get our hospitals back in shape, but when you can make more money as a waiter the incentive to keep nursing is low.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago

    It also sounds like the shortage is itself causing the burnout. Some are raking in the OT and making good money but it's not worth it if you don't have any time off or even time to see your family after work. At most jobs if there's no one to relieve you you go home and they run short, maybe reduce services or close early. You can't do that at a hospital, their options are lots of mandatory overtime or to find literally any other job that's guaranteed a better work life balance.

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  • [–] [S] 3 points 2 years ago

    Are you under the impression that current medical staff are working at only partial capacity and more money will see them step up their game?

    No I am not. I am aware that many have to work at 2 or 3 different places to make a full-time wage and few (if any) receive benefits, which leads to them changing over to private companies where they're paid well, make their own hours and have benefits.

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