Canada’s health care system hinges on the well-being of our nurses and health care workers. They are the backbone of the system. If we continue to overlook their working conditions, we risk not only their welfare but also the quality of care our system provides. Nurses and health care workers are stretched so thin that it is humanly impossible for them to provide attentive care we all rely on. It’s not just about longer wait times. it’s about the quality of care in our health care system taking a nosedive, leaving patients feeling neglected when they need support the most. If we fail to address their working conditions, we risk a mass exodus from the nursing profession, exacerbating the current shortages and putting patient care at risk.
Underfunding public health care results in staffing shortages. When there are not enough nurses and other health care workers, workloads become overwhelming, and the quality of patient care deteriorates. This situation has escalated into a crisis marked by long wait times, emergency room closures and patients being overlooked. Governments need to properly fund our public health care system and implement minimum nurse-to-patient ratios to safeguard patient care quality.
Nurses care about their work, but governments have relied on their resilience for too long to support our health care system. Every day, high workloads drive nurses to make decisions that are detrimental to not only the quality of care they can deliver but also their own personal health. Governments need to set regulations on safe working hours to preserve quality of care and safeguard nurses’ health.
Workplace violence impacts nurses and the overall health care system. More than nine in ten nurses have experienced some form of abuse, ranging from verbal to physical attacks, in the past year. Governments need to better protect nurses against workplace violence, ensuring a safer and more supportive environment for nurses and enhancing the quality of patient care.
Canadians value public health care. But governments across the country are pushing ahead with for-profit, private care. If we want to protect access to care for everyone, we need to continue investing in and reinforcing our public health care systems, focusing on supporting and retaining health care professionals rather than diverting them to corporations, who are only it for profit.
Nursing students across the country are excited to start their careers, but they're also anxious about walking into a difficult situation.
See the latest stories on how poor staffing levels are harming our public health care system.
During the pandemic, governments turned to private firms who sent staff from across the country at higher hourly rates. A Globe investigation focusing on one such nursing agency shows those weren’t the only costs borne by taxpayers
The high costs charged by private nursing agencies threaten the public health care system and need to be investigated by Canada’s auditors-general, union leaders say.
Nova Scotia's emergency departments show unplanned closures are up and people are waiting longer for care.
Emergency departments and other hospital services have closed a record number of times in Ontario so far in 2023, according to a new Ontario Health Coalition report being described as “staggering.”
Sustaining Nursing in Canada proposes a set of concrete actionable solutions to help meaningfully solve the health care staffing crisis.
This report details how governments’ poor planning and failure to address the systemic challenges facing nurses created today’s crisis and the impact on nurses, patients and the health system.
Nurses are at the heart of the solutions recommended in this report:
