Eastern Health launches hiring drive for nurses

The largest health employer in Newfoundland and Labrador has launched an ambitious drive to recruit new nurses in the face of hundreds of pending retirements.

Eastern Health is planning to hire 120 nurses, to help prepare for as many as 300 retirements over the next five years.

Nursing student Crystal Saunders, who graduates in April, is hoping to be one of the new recruits.

"It's a big relief," Saunders said.

"In our last year in nursing school, not knowing if we're going to get jobs— it's a lot of stress. As soon as we found out, it was like a weight had been lifted off our shoulders."

Eastern Health has been spending increasing sums each year on overtime because nursing shortages have become so chronic.

About one in five nurses in Eastern Health— which manages hospitals, nursing homes and clinics on the Avalon, Bonavista and Burin peninsulas, including tertiary hospitals in St. John's— works on a temporary or casual basis.

Eastern Health intends to make many of those positions permanent, in a bid to keep more nurses in its jurisdiction.

"Nurses in the system will tell you [that] there are times when people are working overtime as a result of a shortage of staff. We have trouble being flexible with leave," said Stephen Dodge, an Eastern Health vice-president.

"The more we can do to shore up the system— that's going to be better for everybody in the long term."

Like other health authorities, Eastern Health is competing with out-of-province employers who can offer more lucrative packages.

Nursing contracts in Newfoundland and Labrador lag below the Atlantic Canadian standard, while employers in Western and Northern Canada and in the U.S. can offer starting salaries tens of thousands of dollars higher.

Saunders, an only child, said she is willing to overlook the lower pay for an opportunity to stay close to home.

"I'd really miss the salt water if I left," she said.