Healthcare Professionals

recruitment and retention

in Nova Scotia
 INTRODUCTION

To start with let us break down our topic Health care

professional recruitment and retention. Recruitment
means the process of identifying and hiring people who
are suitable for a particular job.

The most important part after hiring is the retention of

those employees for the long run.
• Today we will talk about the same in
terms of healthcare. If in future, we
continue to work as health care
administrators we will have to face
many challenges regarding this.

• Healthcare staff are the pillars of the

society, doctors, nurses and lab
workers are the one who make or
break the healthcare system. And
hence it is important that they are
been placed at right time at right
place.
It is seen that many healthcare workers do not get their expected
jobs, eg is like in our class many healthcare professionals are not
able to work in their respective fields.

Each year many immigrants come to Canada and among them, a

majority of people are from a healthcare background.

Canada in fact has a separate entry criteria for healthcare

professionals, and despite all this, there is a lack of healthcare
providers in the nation. Retention is as important as recruitment.
• What reasons can be thought of as poor retention of healthcare staff?

• Here are a few reasons

• 1. Young doctors look for career advancement and hence they might shift
to places with better opportunities.
• 2. A large number of the Canadian population is old n Canada, the
population aged 15 to 64 still represents a larger share of the total
population (64.8%)
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/220427/dq220427a-
eng.htm
this leads to retirement of many doctors again causing the gap in the
healthcare industry
 3. Fatigue- due to shortage
of the staff the present staff
has to deal with overworks
resulting in staff burnout. Eg
in covid
• 98% of nurses responded
that they find their job
physically and mentally
draining.
• 44% of nurses responded
that they thought that
their managers don't
appreciate how tired they
become.
• 80% of nurses responded
that they find it hard to
balance body, mind and
spirit.

Physician fatigue is also pervasive in

https://www.columbiasouthern.edu/ Due to this, there is poor To deal with all this we
health care. In a 2018 medscape
blog/blog-articles/2021/january/
survey of more than 15,000
recruitment-and-retention-in- judgment from the staff will today further discuss
physicians from 29 different
specialties, 42% of the respondents
healthcare/#:~:text=staff%20turnover and irritability. some stats and process
%20in%20hospitals%20points,ways of retention and
reported burnout and 15% reported
%20to%20minimize%20this
depression.
%20turnover. recruitment
 • The Office of Healthcare Professionals Recruitment works in
close association with Nova Scotia Health, the IWK and other
partners to recruit various health care professionals like
doctors, nurses and many more.
• According to the news release by the Government of Nova
Scotia on May 18, 2023 following initiatives were taken by the
RECRUIT above mentioned partners over the past year to attract more
healthcare professionals to Nova Scotia. (Physician

MENT
recruitment remains strong in Nova Scotia, May 18 2023)
 working with the regulators to make it easier for licensed
healthcare professionals to work in Nova Scotia from
recognized jurisdictions
 international recruitment mission to Ireland and the Caribbean
to meet with more than 400 medical students with Nova
Scotia ties or an interest in coming to Nova Scotia
 provided funding to 28 community groups for retention and recruitment efforts
 increased the number of physician residency seats for international medical graduates
and added a stream for those with a Nova Scotia connection
 attended more than 90 conferences and recruitment events in Canada, United States and
the United Kingdom
 hosted 13 webinars for high need specialties, medical learners and jurisdictions with new
license pathways
• Putting some light on the numbers, there were 168 doctors who started practising in Nova
Scotia from April 1, 2022 to March 31, 2023. Nova Scotia Health hired 155 doctors and the
IWK Health hired 13 doctors during the last year. Out of these 78 are family doctors and
the rest work in other specialities. The net gain is 86 physicians.
 Another breakthrough action taken by
the Nova Scotian government to meet
the healthcare needs of Nova Scotians
was taken considering the nursing needs
of the growing geriatric population of
the province.
According to the article published by
CBC on Jan 17, 2023, Nova Scotia was
facing huge shortage of licenced nurses.
The condition was so bad that some of
the units were operating at an 80
percent vacancy rate (CBC Radio Canada,
2023).
To combat the situation, the Nova Scotia
College of Nursing changed the
conventional pathway of registration for
the internationally educated nurses and
expediated the registration process for
internally registered nurses from seven
foreign countries encompassing India,
Nigeria, UK, Philippines, New Zealand,
US, or Australia (Licensure in Nova Scotia
for Nurses, 2023).
• In accordance with the new
expediated pathway, in effect from
May 1, 2023, nursing graduates
registered in the aforementioned
countries are given the liberty to skip
the NNAS exam and get the
documents assessed to get licensure
to practice in Nova Scotia.

• Thus, Nova Scotia College of Nursing

became the first in Canda to fast track
the process for nurses outside the
country willing to serve Nova Scotians
and settle in the province
• One week into the expedited process, and NSCN portal had already
received 8,821 applications from internationally graduated nurses who
were willing to practice in the province.
• Having access to good health care services is an important social
determinant, which was getting hampered as 80 out of 100 nursing
positions remained vacant (NCCIH 2019).
• Thus, this expediated process is expected to have a positive impact as more
and more nurses fill the position (Bryant T el al. June 2011).
 RETENTIO
N
• Definition of retention first- it is
defined as to maintain an
adequate supply of any
healthcare professional to
satisfy the healthcare related
requirements of community.
(Baumann, January 2006)
• Recommendations:
Surge number of nursing staff, good salary,
improve their skills, give free and advanced
facilities, support to continue education and
others.
• Canada
investment in healthcare
migration from provinces
policy development (Baumann, January
2006)
• Healthy workforce practices lead to
improved recruitment and retention of
healthcare professionals and government
and employers are implementing these with
ensured results of retention.
• The World Health Report (World Health
Organization [WHO] 2006) launched the
Health Workforce Decade (2006–2015), with
high priority given for countries to develop
effective workforce strategies that include
three core elements: improving recruitment,
helping the existing workforce to perform
better and slowing the rate at which workers
leave the health workforce. In this recent
report, retaining high-quality healthcare
workers is discussed as a major strategic issue
for healthcare systems and employers, and
improving workplaces as a key strategy for
achieving this goal. (Shamian, February 2007)
• Nova Scotia government has announced and initiated new master’s
program to train physician assistant.
• This will start at Dalhousie University from January 2024. Nova Scotia
residents will be prioritized here for application approval. This is First
one in Atlantic Canada and fourth in whole country. Doctors said that
it will free them to take care of more complex issues because
assistants will do work like
• perform histories and physical examinations
• order blood and radiological tests
• make diagnoses and outline treatment plans
• assist with surgeries
• perform minor surgical procedures
• consult other medical and health services
• prescribe medication
• attend to medical emergencies such as cardiac arrest
• provide counselling and preventive services
• administer vaccinations
• perform educational, research and administrative functions.
• Physician assistants provide safe,
competent and effective healthcare
under the supervision of physicians
• The Province is investing $5.6 million
to develop the program and
providing $1.5 million in annual
funding.
• This is regarding action for health and
retain people in province.