Mr. Speaker, our northern graduate nurses are choosing to leave the North. I would like to profile the experience of one of my constituents.
As a recent graduate of the nursing program at Aurora College in Yellowknife, she enjoyed considerable support throughout her training. Yet upon graduation she found that the reality is that there are not enough positions to satisfy the employment needs of our graduates. Furthermore, positions appear to be being filled not on the basis of qualifications or affirmative action policies but rather on perhaps who one knows in the system.
This person, who graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing with distinction, specialized in mental health and addictions: clearly an area of priority concern for us. Her qualifications would clearly prepare her to be an asset to our psychiatry unit at Stanton, but instead she was offered a graduate placement position in Hay River as a general medicine nurse. This would have meant selling her home and leaving behind her family and the supports available to her here. This graduate forwarded a resumé of her qualifications to the Calgary Health Region, where it was readily accepted. That’s quite a contrast.
The nursing program was started at Aurora College to keep Northerners home. Yet time and again Stanton Hospital hires new grads from as far away as Newfoundland, while those who have graduated in the North do not meet the qualifications for nursing positions here. Why do our nurses qualify anywhere else in Canada but not in the Northwest Territories? Hiring locum nurses to fill positions at Stanton when we have homegrown talent right here in our backyard does not make sense. Mr. Speaker, we cannot fail to recognize and support our northern residents. Let’s get our priorities right.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Members’ statements. The honourable Member for Nunakput, Mr. Jacobson.
