Vitalité asks community to help house new international nurses

A new initiative by the Vitalité Health Network is asking the public to help house new international nurses in the face of housing challenges.

Calling it the "International Staff Housing Program," Vitalité is looking to match arriving nurses — and their families, if needed — with local hosts.

"In terms of what we can do ourselves, this is a short-term solution," said Frédéric Finn, Vitalité's vice-president of employee experience.

"We're hiring more and more internationally, and they're coming to New Brunswick and it makes the housing problem greater," Finn said.

A monthly subsidy of $400 to $700 is being offered to those interested in offering space in their homes for a period of up to three months. Finn said New Brunswickers can express their interest via a special Vitalité email address.

Finn said this is a short-term solution, but will help new nurses to "give them time to find more permanent housing of their own, help them settle into their communities."

He said it's hard to put an exact number on how many homes are needed, but said the health network would "appreciate" a few dozen houses to host nurses.

Focus should on retention, says N.B. nurses union

Paula Doucet, president of the New Brunswick Nurses Union, said she supports Vitalité taking efforts to curb housing issues for nurses, but it's only "one piece of the puzzle to try and solve our health-care conundrum."

The real focus needs to be on nurse retention, she said, "because without retention, we have nothing."

Doucet said the province needs to retain nurses by incentivising their years of experience, so that nurses don't leave to become travel nurses and get paid more. 

She added that current nurses need to be incentivised to stay so that there's enough staffing to train and welcome new staff, including international nurses.

"Bringing in more internationally-trained health-care workers without actually retaining the experienced staff that we currently have in our province is still setting people up to fail," Doucet said.

Campbellton mayor already seeing locals offer space

Finn said the Vitalité-served communities especially challenged by housing are Moncton, Bathurst, and Campbellton.

"It's a big issue, it's no secret there," said Campbellton Mayor Jean-Guy Levesque on the city's housing struggles.

"In Campbellton it's a big thing, not only for nurses but for all," he said.

He said he fully supports Vitalité's request for help, and says he's even heard of community members offering up space to health-care workers in Campbellton, including an older couple who wouldn't accept payment from a health-care worker staying in their basement apartment.

"The people are sensible of the situation, of course," Levesque said.

Levesque said housing and apartment stock that existed before the pandemic has all been sold or rented, and the city is behind on meeting housing needs as it sees the first significant population growth since the 1960s.

He said more immigrants are coming to the region, including nurses.

"We need to find a way to build. But for the next year or so, we will try to work with the people around us to see if there's a space at home, a small apartment," Levesque said.

"I think the population is going to answer well. Is it going to be enough to cover all the needs? I'm not sure about that, but we have to work with Vitalité on that."