In addition to turning to placement agencies, Hôpital Montfort in Ottawa is exploring the possibility of recruiting internationally to respond to the shortage of bilingual caregivers in Ontario. According to its vice-president of human resources, Caroline Roy-Egner, the establishment has been considering this avenue since August and intends to define the form that recruitment will take in four to six months.
It is not the interest for jobs at the Montfort hospital that is lacking internationally, according to Caroline Roy-Egner. The heaviness of the prior learning recognition process at the College of Nurses of Ontario (CNO), however, discourages many candidates according to the vice-president. Ontario, unlike Quebec, cannot count on an international recruitment structure. The Montfort hospital, says Caroline Roy-Egner, therefore takes the bull by the horns and will try to reduce the barriers, even if it does not have the powers of the Order.
“It’s a big project,” says Caroline Roy-Egner. The vice-president affirms that the hospital has internal expertise and will also seek some externally to possibly develop a support program for people recruited abroad. Hôpital Montfort already employs staff trained overseas, but they came to Canada on their own and were not recruited directly by the health establishment. These employees will be able to support new hires from abroad, specifies Caroline Roy-Egner.
The initiative could solve problems in the long and medium term, but not in the short term. It is for this reason, among other things, that the establishment — the only French-speaking university hospital in the province — has published a call for tenders to sign contracts with personnel placement agencies. “The agencies can come temporarily to meet the needs,” explains Caroline Roy-Egner. Approximately 220 full-time and part-time nursing positions are currently available at the hospital.
The Ottawa region, like Quebec, faces major labor issues. More than 1,000 nursing positions are to be filled in hospitals in the federal capital. According to data released in November by the Canadian Institute for Health Information, Ontario had 610 registered nurses per 100,000 population in 2021, the lowest rate in the country (data for Manitoba and Northwest Territories was not available). Quebec has 747.
A proactive approach
Caroline Roy-Egner maintains that the signing of contracts with employment agencies – which the establishment has not done for ten years – is part of a proactive approach. At the start of the pandemic, the hospital found that it “didn’t have enough contracts, with enough agencies, that have enough bilingual staff,” the vice president of human resources says of the establishment that has the mandate to offer services in French.
The hospital cannot call an agency directly to ask for staff “without a contract in good and due form” indicates Caroline Roy-Egner. “The idea of going to find agencies is to be ready to face the next crises,” she explains. In the summer, the member of the hospital executive therefore asked her supply department to expand the range of contracts with agencies to have more direct services in the event of an emergency.
Agency nurses will also be able to fill the gaps while active staff learn new skills. The hospital is changing, explains Caroline Roy-Egner, and the skills of certain staff members will be enhanced so that the nurses do not have the majority of the care on their shoulders, illustrates the vice-president. The hospital, she says, wants to build an “interdisciplinary model of care.”
This story is supported by the Local Journalism Initiative, funded by the Government of Canada.