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Canada: Nurses shun elderly care
By Sarah Kennedy, The Ottawa Citizen
July 8, 2003
Nurse
Cindy Barnaby, 27, attending nursing home resident Chuck Skulsky, says she
has always been one of the youngest nurses in her field. She says the
eight years she has spent in long-term care have been so rewarding and
interesting she plans on staying in the field for the rest of her career. Ottawa
- With nearly half of Ottawa's gerontology nurses nearing the age of
retirement, and very few young nurses interested in replacing them, the
long-term care industry is on the verge of a crisis, health officials say. According
to data published in the Ottawa-Carleton Regional Nursing Census Report in
2001, 30 per cent of all nurses regionally will be retiring within the
next 10 years. Unfortunately,
according to Liz Palmer, president of the Gerontology Nurses Association
of Ottawa, long-term care is not the first choice for recently graduated
nurses, most of whom choose instead to enter the seemingly more glamorous
critical care or emergency units. "Young
nurses see gerontology nursing as a dead-end job, a place where old nurses
go to die," she said. The
average age of nurses in Ontario is 47, and over the next five to 10
years, a large portion of those nurses will be considering retirement. But
many admit they are hesitant to do so, fearing there won't be any young
nurses interested in filling their shoes, said Ms. Palmer. "We
have older nurses staying longer and we're not getting enough young,
well-trained nurses," she said. "Nurses with new ideas to come
in here and shake things up." Marlene
Tosh, chairwoman of continuing education in the health area at Algonquin
College, said she has witnessed enrolment numbers decline in the college's
post-graduate gerontology courses. "Part
of the reason is because it is not mandatory to get this training in order
to get into the field and the other reason is that students just aren't
interested," she said. Ms.
Tosh said there are 18 people in the gerontology course, but she would
like to see 32. The
Ontario government's $20-billion Super Build Project, designed to renew,
rebuild and expand the province's infrastructure, has resulted in an
addition of 20,000 long-term beds in Ontario hospitals and nursing
facilities, making the issue of nursing shortages all the more pertinent. To
contend with the expansion, there will need to be an additional 17,200
people hired by 2006 said Charlene Lunney, director of operations for the
Ontario Association of Non-Profit Homes for Seniors. Currently,
there are 6,231 nurses working in nursing homes or long-term care
facilities in the province. "This
is a considerable problem, considering the average age of our nurses
across the province is 47," she said. "We're going to have a
huge retirement problem on our hands." But
the looming crisis is not enough to get Holly Ovington to reconsider
entering the gerontology field. "You
couldn't pay me a million dollars to go back," said the 32-year-old,
who graduated from Algonquin College's nursing program in June. Ms.
Ovington worked as a health care aid in three long-term care facilities
while she was going to school and said she found it very depressing. "You
watch them die and then you try to comfort their families," she said. Ms.
Ovington said there are other areas she finds far more challenging and
stimulating. She
is working in the birthing unit at the Queensway-Carleton Hospital, which
she describes as the opposite of long-term care. "Ninety
nine per cent of the time it is a happy place to be." But
long-term care officials say that's exactly the stigma they are trying to
overcome. "It
all comes down to the myth that has been perpetuated that this is a boring
field," said Karl Samuelson, administrator for Garden Terrace, a
nursing home in Kanata. "What
is dynamic about this area is that they can exercise clinical skills and
demonstrate leadership skills that they'd have to wait 20 years to do in
acute care," he said. Because
people are living longer, the average age of residents in Ontario's
nursing homes is 86, meaning that when residents do enter the facilities,
they are usually quite frail and sick. Whereas
before, nurses spent most of their time making beds and bathing and
dressing patients, they are now expected to do more technical procedures
and have more responsibilities than they would in a hospital, said Karen
Sullivan, president of the Ontario Long Term Care Association. "The
more we expose young people (to it), the more they'll realize the
opportunities," she said. "In long-term care, they'll have more
of an opportunity to move into a management position." Ms.
Sullivan said it comes down to marketing the industry to make it more
appealing to the younger generation. Cindy
Barnaby, 27, is a registered nurse at Hillel Lodge, a nursing home off
Carling Avenue, and said she has always been one of the youngest nurses in
her field. "I've
had people say to me that I'm not a real nurse. I think that there's a
real stigma," she said. "A lot of people just see us as pushing
pills." Ms.
Barnaby came out of school wanting to work in pediatrics or the surgery
unit. She entered gerontology because there weren't a lot of other job
opportunities at the time. But
she says the eight years she has spent in long-term care have been so
rewarding and interesting that she plans on staying in the field for the
rest of her career. Ms.
Palmer said they are appealing to universities to do more research on the
advances in gerontological care, to attract students into the field. The
University of Alberta, also recognizing a growing need for geriatric
nurses, is moving towards establishing a master's degree with a
gerontology specialty. This will provide nurses with advanced training in
the field and allow them to guide treatment. In
Saskatchewan, the nursing population is aging and similar to Ontario's.
The average age of nurses in the province is 47. According to Marlene Brown, vice-president of finance with the Saskatchewan Union of Nurses, 450 more nurses are needed in the province this year alone. Copyright
© 2002 Global Action on Aging
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