Ontario’s Minister of Health is giving nursing and medical regulatory colleges two weeks to develop plans to register internationally trained professionals more quickly.
Sylvia Jones today sent directives to the College of Nurses of Ontario and the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario instructing them to do their utmost to register these nurses and physicians “as quickly as possible”.
The minister also ordered the college of nursing to develop supports for internationally educated nurses – such as bringing their skills up to Ontario standards – to enable them to practice “in a timely manner”.
Jones has requested reports from colleges in two weeks on how they will accomplish this.
Hospitals have been strained across the province, with some emergency rooms forced to close for hours or days at a time due to a lack of staff.
Nursing groups, hospital leaders, other healthcare professionals and advocates said burnout after being on the frontlines of COVID-19 for more than two years and not having been properly compensated caused people to leave the profession in droves.
A 2020 report from Ontario’s Fairness Commissioner showed that 14,633 internationally educated nurses were actively seeking licensure through the College of Nurses of Ontario. That same year, just over 2,000 international applicants became full members.
The registered nurses association says the past decade has seen a growing backlog of internationally trained applicants and estimates the queue is nearly 26,000.
The College of Nurses recently took steps to speed up the process, including changing language proficiency requirements and partnering with the province to create more supervised practice opportunities, a nurse said. word.
It registered a record number of nurses this year, including more international nurses than in previous years, with 4,728 registrations at the start of August. The college also says it is looking for ways to streamline the process.
cbc
