The president of the Registered Nurses Union says she’d like to know what nurses in Dubai and India were promised before coming to NL to practice.
The RNU says many internationally-trained nurses who were recruited to work in this province have yet to secure a full-time position in their chosen profession.
The health authority has indicated that part of the problem lies in where the available positions happen to be, but that positions will be available in the St. John’s area in time.
The nurses union says some nurses have already purchased homes and are left in limbo.
Union president Yvette Coffey says she’d love to know what the nurses were promised when they were recruited. She cites a story relayed to her by one nurse who has yet to secure full-time employment in the metro region, and has been passed over by newer international nurses and recent graduates.
“And agency nurses being used still here in the St. John’s area. She actually used the word ‘inequity’ and ‘discriminatory.'”
Coffey says the nurse has been told it could take up to two years for them to get a job in the metro region. “I’m just flabbergasted to know what were these people told on the ground in India and Dubai about coming to Newfoundland and where the jobs were?”