Internationally educated nurses hope new Ontario program will break down barriers

A new program between the Ontario government and the College of Ontario Nurses is set to give more internationally educated nurses (IEN) a chance to get hands on experience prior to being fully certified, but many say more needs to be done to make the process easier to navigate and quicker for those workers to be able to utilize their skills.

Becoming a registered nurse (RN) in Canada in an arduous process for anyone who was educated outside the country.

This untapped resource could be crucial during the fight against the Omicron COVID-19 variant as hospitals deal with a surge in ICU occupancy and hospitalizations coupled with the nursing shortage and staff absenteeism.

The announcement has made nurses hopeful they will soon be able to put their skills to good use and provide help to those who are burnt out working in hospitals.

Jennifer Lopez became a registered nurse in Ontario in 2019 after first arriving to Canada in 2012 from the Philippines . She started a group in 2016 as support for other internationally educated nurses who were trying to become certified.

The Integrated Filipino Canadian Nurses Association provides support for approximately 1,000 nurses trying to get their RN certification in Canada.

“They have a lot to contribute to the nursing shortage that will ease up a burden to the health care system. And it will improve actually the patient safety and quality of patient that we are giving to the patients,” said Lopez.

However, there are some questions that remain about how quickly this will allow nurses to become registered. There are eight registration requirements to fulfill in order to become an RN.

These include nursing education, evidence of practice, language proficiency, registration examination, health and conduct as well as authorization to work in the province.

According to data from the Canadian Institute for Health Information, internationally educated nurses represent 8.1 per cent of all regulated nurses in the country, as of 2016.

The new provincial program, Supervised Practice Experience Partnership (SPEP), will provide IENs with the chance to get their evidence of practice. They will have had to fulfill all other requirements except language proficiency in order to be considered for the program.

The SPEP will provide 140 hours of practice experience under the supervision of a qualified instructor.

Once they’ve completed it, they will be eligible to register with the College of Ontario Nurses (CNO), however, registration is not guaranteed. The CNO is the regulatory body for nurses in Ontario.

Lopez says this lack of guarantee makes it stressful for nurses. “Let them do the 140 hours immediately and give them the license so that they can take care of the patients by themselves. And then patients will be given the proper care.”

It took her four years to become fully registered despite having 12 years of experience as a nurse before moving to Canada. Lopez had to do over three years of schooling to become registered nurse prior to being able to eligibility to take registration examination, also known as the NCLEX-RN.

Aneshka Singam is in a unique position because while she is considered an internationally educated nurse, she went to school in the U.S. when the process to become a nurse is similar.

“The education is similar in the U.S. and Canada requires people who want to become nurses to take the NCLEX which is the licensing exam. So I had taken that already.”

It took Singam nine months to become certified, but since she is also an international student studying gerontology, she is only permitted to work 20 hours a week.

She says she has had trouble finding nursing positions that will allow her to work those limited hours and on weekends, despite the shortage of nurses available.

“I wanted to help during the pandemic and nursing shortage, and yet, nothing has come of it because of all of the policies or rules in place that have made it impossible,” Singam told CityNews. “Hundreds of dollars later, my nursing education and background has not been put to use here in Ontario.”

Prior to moving, she had worked as a nurse in Minnesota for a year.

“There are definitely a lot of barriers, especially if you’re educated anywhere other than North America,” added Singam. “And even though some of these nurses have had years of experience, they are still deemed unable to practice as nurses here because the education they receive doesn’t match up with what is required in some aspects.”

Singam is in a support group for international nurses and says she has seen some nurses just give up. “There are some people that just wanted to give up, they didn’t want to come here anymore. Their intention was to come here and work and help during the pandemic. But, this process was such a barrier that they just kind of gave up.”

When CityNews asked Lopez whether she thinks there would be any safety issues in trying to expedite the process to get certified, Lopez said, “The safety issue right now is this nursing shortage, which we want to help with. We want to help our fellow nurses, we don’t want them to suffer. We don’t want them to be exhausted and burned out.”

CityNews has reached out to Ontario Health and the Ministry of Health to find out how many nurses they plan to deploy through the SPEP program, but has not received a response.

In the original release from the province about the program on Jan. 11, it said more than 1,200 internationally educated CNO applicants have expressed interest in participating in these initiatives and “matching with health-care providers is expected to begin later this week.”

The Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario’ states that forecasters estimate that by 2022, an additional 60,000 nurses will be needed to meet healthcare needs in the country.