‘I want to go back home’: Internationally-educated nurses in Atlantic Canada struggle to find jobs

Internationally educated nurses face hurdles before being able to work in Canada.

The Health Association of African Canadians says more internationally-educated nurses are facing barriers finding and retaining jobs in their field.

Despite having years of experience, many are burdened by unexpected financial costs, which leads to some calling their career quits, before they even start.

Karen Hall migrated to Canada from Jamaica in 2013, after completing her nursing education.

But her work as a licensed practical nurse in Canada didn’t start until 2017.

“I had my challenges…I lacked the Canadian experience. I lacked mentorship and support. I lacked financial aid… I lacked Canadian references. It was a challenge to get a job,” says Hall.

“I didn’t expect it to be so long and challenging and so difficult to get into that role. And how the system was set up, it wasn’t welcoming to international-educated nurses to step into the role as a new hire, as a newcomer in Canada… it makes you want to say, ‘I want to give up. I want to go back home. This is not worth it.’”

Olayemi Akinrinola, the project director with the Health Association of African Canadians’, says in some cases, internationally-educated nurses with 10 years of experience wait a decade to find a job.

“One would think or imagine that coming here, integrating themselves in the Canadian health system is going to be very easy for them, only for them to get here, [and] most of them get stranded, most of them didn’t get their work permit on time,” says Akinrinola.

“So there’s a lot of questions around that as well… actually most of them after spending two or three years will gradually go back to their own country because their vision, their hope of practicing in Canada was not fulfilled.”

Akinrinola says that reality was the catalyst behind the Africa-Caribbean Nursing Continuum Program.

It’s a three-year initiative that provides financial and other support for nurses of African and Caribbean descent, who are living in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.

Under the program, people can receive up to $3,000 towards things like license fees.

An information session was held on Saturday in Halifax about the program.

“From our discussion with these nurses, what we realized is [for] most of them, the top on the list is financial challenges,” says Akinrinola.

He says the long-term goal of the program is to build an inclusive future where African and Caribbean nurses are empowered to thrive, contribute and lead within the Nova Scotia and New Brunswick healthcare systems.

Hall says it was important for her to take on a nurse consultant and mentorship role with the program, to provide other nurses with the support she never had.

“I always try to offer my help as best as I can with the resources that I know, the information that I know, because I have to pass it on. I don’t want them to have the same experience or similar experience that I had when I just came here,” she says.

“It was challenging, but I had to change the narrative for myself to say, ‘hey, I’m not going to allow this system to let me walk away. I walked into the system because I had a purpose.’”

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