Canada's universal health system is more at risk than ever with an aging population and an onslaught of baby boomers reaching stages of care needs, says the president of the Canadian Nurses Association (CNA) during a visit to Prince George.
"People have forgotten when the family farm was lost to pay for health care. That's called private health care and it's not what we need," said Judith Shamian, who was in Prince George Monday as part of a Canada-wide tour focusing on nursing care.
What's needed is a marked shift in health policy to focus on disease prevention, wellness and health promotion rather than hospital care.
She said we need a new health accord that includes pharmacare so patients can afford medication, home care and changes to health-system funding towards community-based care, health promotion and chronic disease prevention.
"And we want investments in health services delivery based on collaborative teams where bottlenecks are eliminated by nurses and nurse practitioners, along with other health professionals and medical teams," she added.
Shamian emphasized the upcoming federal election is an opportunity for Canadians to ask questions of candidates as to their plans and vision to protect and improve our health care system.
"There's a lot at risk here. The Canadian public needs to be informed and they need to vote on May 2," she said.
"In 2009, we were short about 20,000 nurses across the nation, and it's projected that number will increase to 60,000 by 2022. We need to have more [government paid] nursing student seats opened to deal with the baby boomers," she said.
"I think all parties understand the importance of health care. It's the number one concern of Canadians."
A nurse shortage and abnormal caseloads leads to overtime hours and burn out, which, in turn, causes a ripple effect throughout the entire health care system, said Shamian.
"As soon as they can retire, they are gone and the system loses the benefit of their experience, knowledge and mentorship for younger nurses," said Shamian.
"We need to figure out what will help retain them at the union, health authority, provincial and national levels. We need a national group to help figure this out."
AT UNBC, nursing faculty expressed concerns about where future generations of university professors are going to come from.
"They said it's hard to recruit to rural settings and it's a long journey to earn a ph.D." Consequently there's a big shortage of faculty across the country and those now here are at risk of being taken by other institutions, said Shamian.
The Harper government recently included a bill in its budget designed to forgive student loans of nursing and medical students willing to work in rural settings. Over a five year period, nursing students would be forgiven $20,000 and medical students a total of $40,000.
The bill never got off the floor because Harper's budget was rejected and parliament was dissolved to make way for the election, but Shamian hopes it will be brought back, and that it would be extended to include urban areas, hospitals and more.
Following Monday's stop in Prince George, Shamian continues on to Whitehorse and Dawson City.
CNA is the national professional voice of registered nurses in Canada. A federation of 11 provincial and territorial nursing associations and colleges representing 143,843 registered nurses, CNA advances the practice and profession of nursing to improve health outcomes and strengthen Canada's publicly funded, not-for-profit health system.
