QUEEN’S PARK — Mike Schreiner released the following statement in response to the government’s proposed bill that would remove barriers facing foreign-trained professionals:
“Ontario is in a nursing shortage crisis, with hundreds of thousands of vacant positions at hospitals.
Yet the government has left healthcare workers off its list of proposed legislation that would remove barriers facing foreign-trained professionals.
For weeks I’ve been calling on the Premier to address the nursing shortage crisis with a comprehensive retention and recruitment strategy.
A key component is streamlining the lengthy and cumbersome College of Nurses of Ontario process of granting licenses to qualified internationally educated nurses.
Nurses are burnt out, and many are leaving the profession because of poor working conditions, unfair wages and staffing shortages. They’re overworked and underpaid.
By leaving nurses off the list, the Premier is ignoring a key solution and is only making the nursing shortage crisis worse.”