Nunavut health minister calls survey a roadmap for recruiting nurses

Nunavut Health Minister John Main says the latest nursing recruitment survey is his government'sroadmap for hiring and keeping nurses in the territory, by focusing on professional development, cultural competency training, and reducing workplace stress.

The survey found that 49 per cent ofNunavut nurses plan to retire in the next decade.

Nurses reported a few key gripes, including mandatory overtime, workplace stress and burnout and violence in their workplace.

Main spoke with the CBC's Cindy Alorut about the survey's findings and how the health department plans to respond.

This conversationhas been edited for clarity and length.

The nursing recruitment survey for 2021 was just released. What's the good news in this survey?

This survey is really valuable to us as a Department of Health because the information collected through the survey helps us know what our employees and what our nurses are dealing with, what they want and what they'd like to see in their workplace. It's really valuable to us because we want to meet their needs. We want to be a good employer and we want to have a strong recruitment and retention of nurses so they can provide essential health services to Nunavummiut.

One of the positive notes that we're able to take ... is the desire for more professional development opportunities. This is something that we've heard loud and clear from our nurses, and it's something that we're acting on in terms of making more professional development opportunities available and making more support available for employees who are interested in furthering their skills.

Was there any bad news fromthis survey?

Definitely. I mean, it's been a very challenging time for nurses in terms of the COVID pandemic. It's a very challenging time in terms of the workforce nationally. There's a high demand for nurses. In some workplaces there are shortages, which can lead to issues of burnout or issues of larger than normal stress loads on our employees. There are things in there that are concerning for me as minister to hear about and it's really important for us as an employer to make sure that we're constantly listening to our employees.

We want to be the employer of choice. We want to be one of the strongest jurisdictions in Canada in terms of supporting our nurses and valuing them. That's where it's up to us to take the information in this survey and respond to it so that we are making improvements and so that we're showing our employees, the nurses, how much we value them.

How are you using the information in this survey to change recruitment?

We have developed a road map to strengthen the Nunavut nursing workforce. This road map plan was developed after extensive consultations with our nurses, with our employees. It's really going to direct our actions as a department in terms of what changes, what improvements we're making. There's five pillars under the road map: workforce planning, improving recruitment, professional development opportunities, a professional practice environment and leadership. Under those five pillars ... we're making changes to better support our nurses across Nunavut.

Only 29 per centof nurses in Nunavut identify the territory as their primary residence. Is this a problem? Is it sustainable to rely on so many nurses from the South?

It's a concern that we have such a reliance on nurses from outside of Nunavut. First of all, no matter where the nurses reside, I'd like to say that we value each and every one of them who do come and work in Nunavut, whether they're living here temporarily or living here full time. In the longer term, we would like to see more nurses make Nunavut their homes. We'd like to train and hire more Nunavummiut, and ofcourse, more Inuit into into the profession. That's very important for us.

The question that falls to us at the department is, what can we do to make Nunavut more attractive [and] more competitive for employment? Right across Canada right now there's intense competition. There's a shortage right across the country and we are actively working to make new a competitive. attractive locale ...so that in the future we will have a higher number of permanent resident nurses.

With this intense competition in Canada, does that make it harder to recruit more nurses for Nunavut?

It's definitely highlighted the shortage that does exist. Hearing from my Health Minister colleagues across Canada, including the federal health minister, Jean-Yves Duclos, it's right across Canada. All these different jurisdictions are looking at the same thing we are in terms of what can they do to attract nurses.

It's definitely something that is impacting our workforce in a big way and it's stemming from pressures around the pandemic. It's stemming from things like demographics, where nurses are retiring. So it's brought a lot of attention to the topic. It's not all bad. Having attention devoted to this is helpful in terms of pushing forward and making changes and improvements that will, I hope, pay off in the long run.

How do you manage between the new recruitment for more nurses and obligation to make sure nurses have the cultural competence and skills for remote positions?

It's not as simple as just hiring a nurse from southern Canada or from another jurisdiction and then bringing them into our communities to work. We do have orientation packages that are delivered and that are standardized so that our nurses are provided the tools and the knowledge they need to work effectively.

One of the things that was identified in that survey was cultural competence, where our nurses are telling us through the survey that it's an area where they would like to see more professional development. It's something that we're very interested in expanding right now. All of our orientation packages do include elements around cultural competence, but after this survey and seeing the results, it's something that we are interested in improving.

[Cultural Competence Training is] done currently through the department of Human Resources. Unfortunately, some of those sessions were limited during the COVID-19 pandemic because they're in person, but those have resumed. There's also elements that are embedded into our onboarding orientation packages for nurses across Nunavut.

Almost two thirds of new nurses reported experiencing workplace violence and more than 80 per cent have seen violence in the workplace. What are you doing to stop this problem?

It's something that's very concerning to hear about. Unfortunately, the increasing rates of workplace violence aren't unique to Nunavut at the national level. It's been identified as a problem recently. There are some theories that it's due to pressures around the pandemic, the COVID-19 virus. It's a big concern to us in terms of how it can impact our workplaces and impact our employees, of course. Some of the things we're doing are providing our employees with the skills to recognize and deescalate violent behaviour, which is something that's done through a course.

We've also rolled out a campaign that's aimed at increasing the reporting of violent incidents because there is a tendency to to not report violent incidents ...We've enhanced security services in the community health centres across Nunavut. That's in response to the workplace violence that has been occurring. Certain communities have higher levels of security in their community health centres than others and that's responding and attempting to prevent these types of incidents because we really don't want to see them happening. It's not good for our staff, it's not good for our clients.