Help is on the way for the Alberta health care system, as the provincial government is planning to hire 300 new full-time nurses within the next few weeks.
That number is in addition to any nurses Alberta Health Services (AHS) would normally hire, and 100 of them are earmarked for the Edmonton region, including the Sturgeon Community Hospital in St. Albert.
Chief nursing officer Deb Gordon said AHS has taken a hard look at their projected workforce demand for the coming year and 300 new nurses — at a cost of $6.5 million — should be enough to take some of the pressure off existing staff.
“That will go a long way to helping us close the gap,” she said.
Meanwhile, United Nurses of Alberta (UNA) first vice-president Bev Dick said the hirings are a “positive step.”
“It’s nice to see some good news in health care, especially in hiring,” she said.
AHS currently has 100 positions posted for the Calgary area, and they hope to post jobs in Edmonton in the next week or so with the hiring completed and the nurses working by the end of August.
Dick called the figure of 300 “a good start,” but wouldn’t mind seeing even more in the future.
“We believe there’s probably more needed, but we’re really pleased they’re taking this initiative,” she said, also noting most of the new positions are permanent.
Gordon agreed more hirings could be coming down the road.
“This gets us started,” Gordon said. “It does really help us to capture some of the folks coming out of school right now. So far this year, we are a little bit ahead of the pace of our hiring from last year. We’ve managed to bring some additional nurses on this year.”
Although the hiring process is being expedited, Dick isn’t worried, saying AHS’ usual hiring process can leave positions vacant for weeks or sometimes months, forcing those remaining to work overtime to shoulder the load.
“Excessive amounts of working isn’t good for anybody, really,” she said. “If they believe they can put those positions out there and fill them quickly, that’s great. We hope they’re successful.”
As part of the workforce demand projections, AHS has identified several different specific departments where some of these new nurses will be stationed, such as surgery, women’s health, emergency and mental health.
There has been some worry from the UNA since the hiring announcement was made that, with many Alberta nursing school graduates leaving the province while AHS instituted a hiring freeze two years ago, there might not be enough qualified applicants to fill the 300 positions.
“You can’t afford to mess around with this every time you turn around. Every time we go through those ebbs and flows, we lose those new graduates and we can’t afford to do that. We need to keep them all,” Dick said.
But Gordon was confident the positions will be filled.
“There are people out there right now who are anxiously waiting for us to have positions for them to apply to,” she said. “I actually had an email from a young nurse [Tuesday] who said to me she’s really excited about this because she’s out there looking for work right now.”
Dick added that she hoped some nurses who currently hold part-time or casual positions will have the chance to fill one of the new full-time slots and that any increase in the number of registered nurses in Alberta hospitals is a good sign.
“The more registered nurses, registered psychiatric nurses, you have, the better the patient care, the better the patient outcomes,” she said. “It’s not just good news for nurses, it’s good news for patients and all Albertans.”
