Ontario to pay nurses $5,000 retention bonus

The Ford government has announced they will be paying a $5,000 retention bonus to all Ontario nurses, but unions say it doesn’t go far enough to fix the human resources crisis in health care.

The move will cost $763 million and is available to all eligible full-time nurses. A prorated payment of up to $5,000 will be available for eligible part-time and casual nurses as well.

It will be paid out by employers in two installments. Those who are eligible include nurses in hospitals, long-term care and retirement homes, home and community care, primary care, mental health and addictions, emergency services, and correctional facilities.

They must have been employed by March 31 to receive the first payment and September 1 for the second.

“As we continue to build up our nursing workforce, this investment will support the nurses we currently have so that Ontarians continue to have access to the care they need during the COVID-19 pandemic and into the future,” said Health Minister Christine Elliott in a news release.

Health-care workers’ unions, including SEIU Healthcare, CUPE, Unifor and the Ontario Nurses’ Association who represent 85,000 nurses across the province, say this temporary fix “won’t work to retain and recruit nurses who are asking long-term predictability and support.”

In an open letter, the unions called on Premier Doug Ford to “move past the band aid pay-as-you-vote gimmicks.”

The unions also said the retention bonus was exclusionary and they had asked the premier to ensure that any retention bonus would be inclusive of all front-line nurses and health-care workers.

They also urged once again for the government to consider repealing Bill 124, the legislation that caps public sector worker salaries at one per cent per year.

“Nurses across the province are angry at once again being thrown crumbs by this government, instead of meaningful solutions to the health staffing crisis,” said Cathryn Hoy, president of the Ontario Nurses’ Association. “Premier Ford’s exclusionary bonus doesn’t begin to address the issues fuelling Ontario’s health workforce crisis and hurting patient care.”