Nurses puzzle David Orazietti

NEWS RELEASE

DAVID ORAZIETTI, MPP

*************************** Province continues to deliver more support for nurses

SAULT STE. MARIE - The McGuinty government values the excellent work that Registered Nurses do across the province and that is why we have made record investments in health care funding.

The province is committed to improving health care in Sault Ste. Marie and it continues to increase funding and create jobs for nurses, David Orazietti, MPP announced today.

“I have been in close contact with the Sault Area Hospital and they confirmed that in the last year not one registered nurse has been laid off and as of April 28, 2010 a total of twenty-six RN positions were posted for employment at the hospital,” said Orazietti. “I find it puzzling that the president of the Ontario Nurses’ Association is so eager to defend inaccurate information released by the NDP given that when the NDP governed Ontario they reduced nursing positions by nearly 3,000 as well as reduced the number of spaces at medical schools across the province.”

The McGuinty government’s key accomplishments for nurses include:

- Almost 10,000 more nursing positions created in Ontario since 2003. More than 900 nursing positions to be created in 09/10.

- Made Ontario one of the few jurisdictions in the world to guarantee a full-time job opportunity to every new nursing graduate.

- More than 7,700 new nursing graduates have been matched to a guaranteed job opportunity through the Nursing Graduate Guarantee program.

- Opened Canada’s first nurse practitioner-led clinic in Sudbury, and have announced an additional 25 new clinics that will come into operation by 2011/12.

- Increased the percentage of nurses working full-time by 13 percent (from 50 percent in 2003 to 62.9 percent in 2008).

- Invested in a $40 million Nursing Retention Fund, managed by our three major nursing partners, to help hospitals retrain and retain nurses.

- Funded 1,200 registered practical nurse positions in our LTC homes, with at least one new nurse in every home.

- Provided more than 2,000 experienced nurses with the opportunity to spend more time in less physically demanding roles, so we could retain these valuable nurses in our workforce (late career nurse initiative).

- Invested in specialized education for 358 newly hired nurses, so they’re better able to provide care for seriously injured and critically ill patients.

- Created a new program to support tuition costs for nursing graduates who wish to return rural, remote or underserviced communities.

- Created the Grow Your Own Nurse Practitioner program, to support registered nurses obtaining advanced education to fill vacant nurse practitioner positions.

- Launched new health provider roles to create new opportunities for nurses. Through Health Force Ontario, our new health human resources strategy, new roles include registered nurses performing flexible sigmoidoscopy, registered nurse - surgical first assists and nurse practitioners with specialty education in anesthesia.

- Doubled the number of education spaces for educating nurse practitioners (from 75 to 150 spaces), and adding 50 more spaces over the next three years.

- Created the Nursing Education Initiative (NEI) which provides eligible nurses with up to $1500/year to access continuing education and professional development.

- Provide $1M in annual funding for the tuition support program which assists nurses interested in working in eligible rural, remote and underserviced communities.

Key facts

Invested over $900 million in nursing initiatives since 2003, including:

- $183 million for the Nursing Graduate Guarantee program

- $14 million in 2007-08 (growing to $57 million in 2008-09) for 1,200 registered practical nurses in long-term care homes, with at least one new RPN in each home

- $94 million over six years for the late career nurse initiative, to help ensure over 2,000 experienced nurses per year stay on the job longer

- $2.8 million to support mentorship opportunities for new graduate nurses and to help experienced nurses transition into new roles

- $103 million to add more than 19,000 bed-lifts and safety equipment

- $11.6 million to support hospitals in transition to safer medical equipment, including safer needles

- $50 million annually for 1,202 new full-time nursing jobs in our hospitals

- $20 million for clinical simulation equipment to better prepare nursing students for entering clinical practice

- $4.5 million to provide critical care training to 358 newly hired nurses in 59 hospitals

- $1 million annually to support tuition costs for nurses who wish to return to rural, remote or underserviced communities

- Over $5 million annually for the primary health care nurse practitioner Education program

- $93 million invested for nursing research and additional nursing education initiatives

- $5.5 million towards pilot projects to provide nurses working in a variety of settings with PDAs (hand-held computers)

- $1.5 million for three nursing workload demonstration sites

- $5.9 million for Nursing Health Human Resources Planning Demonstration projects.

- Investing $38 million over three years to create 25 nurse practitioner-led clinics by 2011-12

*************************** Earlier SooToday.com coverage of this story

Ontario Nurses’ Association takes on Orazietti