Newfoundland and Labrador Health Services says all of the province’s 2025 nursing graduates will be offered jobs.
Last week the Registered Nurses Union issued a release indicating that conversations with nursing grads revealed that of the 121 fourth-year nursing students at MUN’s Centre for Nursing Studies, only three were given job offers.
One said that a manager with the health authority in central Newfoundland indicated that “he prefers hiring private agency nurses because they are easier to make happy.”
VP of Human Resources Debbie Molloy told VOCM Open Line with Paddy Daly this morning that there are jobs available. She says third year nursing students are matched in the fall with vacancies.
“This year we had five people…who’ve actually said they had an interest in Labrador, we have vacancies in Labrador so we were able to make those job offers right away.” In the meantime screening is currently underway to determine where they can match people with current vacancies.
On the comments of the NLHS manager about preferring to hire agency nurses, Molloy says an investigation has been launched into the matter. She says they want to determine what exactly was said, and “appropriate action” will be taken after that.
International Nursing Recruits also Looking for Work
Meanwhile, the RNU is “deeply concerned” about a growing number of internationally educated nurses who have reached out to the union to share their stories about unfulfilled job promises.
The nurses were recruited to the province with the promise of full-time, permanent jobs, but the RNU says many are facing a “starkly different reality.”
Internationally educated nurses, despite passing their NCLEX exams and holding licenses to practice, are often working as Personal Care Attendants and ward clerks instead of as registered nurses.
The international nurses have told the union that they have bought homes and want to become a part of the local community, yet months after arriving in the province they remain sidelined.
RNU President Yvette Coffey says there’s a “big disconnect” between remaining vacancies and the positions being filled.
She says she’s sent 14 emails to Debbie Molloy “in the past couple of weeks from Internationally educated nurses who were interviewed, told they had a job back in the spring, but also told they had to wait up to nine months to know where they would be working.” In the meantime, they’re working as PCAs and one is working as a ward clerk on the west coast. “I don’t know where the disconnect is here…” says Coffey.
VP of Human Resources with NLHS Debbie Molloy acknowledges that there are internationally trained nurses working as PCAs who are actively seeking employment as registered nurses.
The challenge, explains Molloy, is about the location in which those people want to work.
She says they have been offered jobs, but many don’t want to leave the St. John’s area. Molloy says those workers will eventually work in the system as positions open up through natural attrition.
